Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Defence – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 2 November 2009.
I shall write to the hon. Gentleman with the exact figure immediately following questions. The original decision was to move from 28 crews down to 24. We are at 26 crews today, but I have reversed that decision and we will go back up to 28. However, even where there is an ad hoc closure at one of the bases, we meet our response times by providing search and rescue from a neighbouring base.