Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Royal Navy vessels are deployed in the Middle East, including the types of vessels deployed, for each of the last ten years for which the latest data is available; and what assessment he has made of the adequacy of this presence given regional security threats.

The number of ships that have been deployed to the Middle East region (which includes the Gulf and the Eastern mediterranean) for the past ten years shown in the table below:

The number of deployments to the Middle East region will vary over time for many reasons, such as support for specific operations (for example, delivering humanitarian aid, non-combatant evacuation operations); changes to operating concepts and transiting through the region enroute to another area of operations. I am unable to provide specific detail on the type of vessels deployed to protect the operational security of the fleet.

The Ministry of Defence keeps its force posture in the Middle East under continual review to safeguard the UK’s national security interests and operational requirements. We remain committed to working with our partners across the region.