Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many underwater munitions disposals his Department has performed in each of the last five years in the waters surrounding the UK; and what proportion of those disposals involved (a) high order detonations and (b) low order deflagarations.

The Royal Navy’s Area Diving Groups, part of the Fleet Diving Squadron, are responsible for the disposal of underwater ordnance along the UK coastline, up to 12 nautical miles offshore. In the last five years they have conducted the following numbers of underwater demolitions involving High Order detonation of munitions at sea. No Low Order detonations were conducted.