Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether French police are authorised to use a UK-funded Masstech VEZI (Vehicule d’Eclairage de Zone d’Intervention) for riot policing under the terms of the Sandhurst Treaty.

The funding agreement requires that UK-funded resource be used for the purpose of preventing illegal migration to the UK, with any other use being kept limited to only unusual and urgent cases.

This is a common-sense allowance to avoid situations in which serious crimes go unprevented because law enforcement needed to change vehicles before attending the scene, or UK-funded personnel were not allowed to intervene, etc.