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Written question asked by Lindsay Hoyle (Labour) on Wednesday, 7 December 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 12 December 2005. It was answered by Adam Ingram (Labour) on Monday, 19 December 2005 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Uniform Contracts

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many battle dress uniforms for the new cut and sew contracts have been produced in (a) China, (b) the UK and (c) other countries, broken down by country; and how many have been tested.
Answer

The number of items of combat (battle dress) clothing delivered under the cut and sewn contract as at 8 December 2005 are as follows:

Country of production Quantity delivered
China 449,064
UK 30,647
Lithuania 12,493
Germany 12,337

Combat clothing is among the items listed as Category 1 items within the terms of the contract. As at 8 December, 389 Category 1 garments had been tested by Ministry of Defence personnel. The bulk of these were combat clothing items.Garments are checked against the contractual specification, which includes certain tolerances to allow for the bulk manufacturing process. Only one fault outside of these tolerances has so far been identified. Checks carried out by MOD are risk-based random checks, with 100 per cent. checks carried out where necessary. This checking is, however, just one element of a comprehensive quality assurance process starting with the prime contractor and its sub-contractors and ending with technical personnel in the MOD Project Team.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
36771; 440 c2349-50W
Session
2005-06
Subjects
Contracts Armed forces China Procurement Quality control Uniforms
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk