Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Ministry of Defence personnel are deployed in Gibraltar (a) permanently and (b) temporarily, broken down by unit.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) employs 952 personnel in Gibraltar, of which 528 are locally employed civilians. The remainder are military and UK-based civil servants.

The individual units of deployed MOD personnel are broken down as follows:

· Royal Gibraltar Regiment - 235 personnel

· Royal Navy Gibraltar Squadron - 28 personnel

· RAF Gibraltar - 16 personnel

· HQ British Forces Gibraltar - 145 personnel

Gibraltar is routinely used by visiting Royal Navy ships, RAF aircraft and other units that temporarily deploy to conduct training. These visits total approximately 12,000 to 14,000 personnel per year. Exact numbers fluctuate, but indicative figures based on the number of visits in calendar year 2022 are as follows:

· 79 ship visits per year (2022), which equates to around 6,000 to 7,000 Naval personnel.

· 117 military aircraft per year (2022), with around 4,000 military passengers.

· 2,000-3,000 personnel on training deployments per year, mostly from the Army.

· HMS TRENT (63 Ship's Company) is also forward deployed from Gibraltar.