Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: The operation of the railway system in Kosovo is primarily the responsibility of UNMIK. However, KFOR has made operational 229 km of railway track and restored railroads between Kosovo Polje and Pec, between Prizren and Klina and from Skopje (in Macedonia) and Mitrovica. UK Armed Forces are also playing their part in rebuilding Kosovo's infrastructure and currently contribute two "Steelman"...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: The Army and RAF have revised and updated the guidance given to their personnel on the values and standards of each Service and the standards of behaviour and conduct to which they are expected to adhere. This underpins Service ethos and so helps to sustain the operational effectiveness of the Armed Forces. The revised guidance is set out in publications entitled Values and Standards of the...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: Marne Barracks is occupied by 5 Regiment Royal Artillery and 8 Transport Regiment Royal Logistic Corps. From 2003, 8 Transport Regiment will expand to include two further squadrons and in order to accommodate this increase it is proposed that part of the airfield should be built over. Precise details have yet to be confirmed, but it is envisaged that glider activity by 645 Volunteer Glider...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: The SA80 is a lighter, more accurate and more versatile weapon than the SLR. The lower recoil energy of the SA80 derived from its smaller cartridge makes it easier to maintain or reacquire a target during shooting than with the SLR. The average user therefore finds the weapon easier to handle and use. The SA80's SUSAT optical sight, issued to all infantry users, provides 4x magnification of a...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: The relevant legislation is Article 28 of the EC Treaty, which prohibits quantitative restrictions on imports and all measures having equivalent effect between member states.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: A new call-out order has been made under Section 54 of the Reserve Forces Act 1996 which allows the call out of members of the reserve forces to continue so that they may support operations in Yugoslavia and in the region of Iraq. The call-out order has effect until 31 March 2001. Since NATO operations commenced in the former Yugoslavia, the reserve forces have historically provided some 10...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, seven Eurofighter development aircraft have now completed more than 1,200 sorties, achieving some 1,000 flying hours. A number of notable milestones have been achieved, including supersonic flight, care-free handling, air-to-air refuelling and missile firings. Delivery of the first production aircraft for the United Kingdom is planned for mid-2002. Eurofighter export prospects are...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the noble Viscount has most skilfully managed to ask quite a few supplementary questions. Of course, I agree with him that this is a very encouraging picture. The noble Viscount asked about the future of the beyond-visual range air-to-air missile. This programme is still in a pre-contract competition phase. We are in the final stages of assessing bids from two companies; namely,...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I should point out to the noble Lord that that question would have been better put to his own Front Bench colleagues when they sat on the Government Benches, because those decisions were taken when the noble Lord's party was in a position to make such decisions. The noble Lord is quite right to say that the costs of this sort of project are very considerable--some £16.1 billion at...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: No, my Lords; I cannot agree with my noble friend on that point. Of course, the arms trade must be regulated. This Government have made it clear that we will not export arms when we believe that there is a realistic probability that the countries to which we are exporting arms will use those arms for internal repression or external aggression. My noble friend must remember how important...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, as the noble Lord will know, the four partner countries--namely, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Spain--are party to the EU code, which this Government encouraged our partners to sign up to. I am happy to tell the House that they did so and that they are, therefore, parties to the same sort of code that we operate in this country when it comes to arms exports.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the Eurofighter is an aircraft which not only this Government support, but, as I reminded the noble Lord's noble friend, his own party also supported when in office. It is the aircraft that best meets the United Kingdom's needs both in terms of cost and operational effectiveness. It will be the backbone of the RAF's fast jet combat fleet for many years to come. We believe that it...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the Eurofighter is still undergoing part of its developmental stage. These issues are, of course, still a matter for the integrated project team which operates out of Abbey Wood and which I had the great pleasure of meeting a couple of weeks ago. The flexibility in the development stage is likely to continue into the year 2002. All these issues are, therefore, very much at the front...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I believe that had we had the Eurofighter at that time--this is, of course, a speculative statement--we would have found that it met those operational needs. We must bear in mind the importance of developing this aeroplane in a way that allows for real operational flexibility into the future. At the time that it was originally conceived (when the party opposite was in power), the...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, responsibility within NATO for ensuring that Alliance plans for Kosovo operations are neither leaked nor disseminated inappropriately rests with the NATO Office of Security. That organisation oversees comprehensive security measures at NATO headquarters in Brussels and elsewhere. The text which appeared on the Internet recently was caused by a benign virus; it was not a deliberate...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, it is important to distinguish between the two sets of incidents to which the noble Earl refers. I hope that I have made it clear to the House that there was no deliberate leak of NATO information. The appearance of the text of the rules of engagement in Kosovo was, as I indicated, the result of a virus. The security classification, which was "NATO/KFOR confidential", appeared at...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, of course it is enormously important that any NATO plans for the future handling of the situation in Kosovo--which, although immensely improved compared to the situation previously, is very volatile--have proper security, not least because there are many allied troops whose safety would otherwise be compromised. I assure the noble Lord that we are keeping a close eye on the...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, there are of course the issues raised by the noble Lord in relation to the Internet. What matters in the first place is the security of documents at their place of origin. That is why it is important that documents that are kept on computers are kept in such a way as not to compromise their security. In this country, the MoD continually reviews and seeks to improve our procedural...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I indicated that the United States has clear laws on this matter, as we do. The United States freedom of information Act contains an exemption for information which is, "properly classified in the interest of national defense or foreign policy". I believe that that includes the kind of information with which we are dealing here. It would be an offence in the United States, as it...
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, as I have advised previously, on 23rd February 2000, the radio fitted to the Army's FV432 armoured ambulance is the Clansman VRC353.