Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimates of the proportionate numbers of the communities in Cyprus they have used  each of the last five years in fulfilling their obligation under Paragraph 2 of Section 7 of Part II of Annex B of the 1960 Treaty concerning the Establishment of the Republic of Cyprus to employ only Cypriot staff and labour in the Island of Cyprus, provided that such staff and labour are available and qualified to do the work; and what was the evidence base for those estimates.

The Sovereign Base Areas Administration does not routinely undertake estimates of the proportionate number of the communities in Cyprus. As far as possible, the employment of Cypriot nationals is based on the obligations contained within the 1960 Treaty of Establishment, with recruitment based on fair and open competition across both the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities.

At the present time there are 920 Cypriot nationals employed by the UK authorities in the Sovereign Base Areas; representing 72 per cent of the local workforce in the Bases. Currently 810 of these staff are from the Greek Cypriot community, with 110 Turkish Cypriots. These figures have remained relatively consistent over the last five years.

The remaining 28 per cent of the local workforce (355 posts) are filled by UK nationals; primarily dependants of personnel posted across the Sovereign Base Areas. These posts are screened when a vacancy arises to confirm that the required exemption remains extant, which includes security restrictions, qualification requirements and first language proficiency.

Note:

Figures relating to personnel numbers are rounded to the nearest 5.