Topical question asked in the House of Commons, by Peter Bone (Conservative). It was answered on Monday, 21 July 2008 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Topical Questions

Question: The former commander of 3 Para, Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart Tootal, recently said: ““We had seven Chinooks for a battle group of 1,200; now there are only eight Chinooks for four battle groups. If you're not flying you're driving, and if you're driving when you should be flying you're vulnerable to roadside bombs…we don't have enough helicopters.”” Does the Secretary of State agree?

Answer: We addressed this question earlier. As I have made plain, including in my written statement to the House, the number of helicopter hours and the availability of helicopters have increased significantly—by 30 per cent.—and we are taking further steps to increase the fleets from which we will deploy aircraft into Afghanistan. In addition, we are part of a coalition, and the Canadians have taken steps as a consequence of their review to buy six additional Chinooks and eight Griffons, and they are leasing eight Mi-17s in the short term. The hon. Gentleman will also be aware that, in co-operation with France, we have engaged in an initiative with the European Union and NATO to increase the deployability of the many hundreds of helicopters that many of our allies have but which are not deployable, either because their crews are not skilled enough to fly them in the environment or because they are not suitably equipped to provide the maximum amount of safety. Those things are going on all the time; the problem is that it takes time to get from where we are to a point where we have further deployable equipment in the operational theatre. Every single day, however, we make a step in the right direction.

Secondary information