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Written question asked by Nick Harvey (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 23 February 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 25 February 2010. It was answered by Lord Davies of Stamford (Labour) on Tuesday, 2 March 2010 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.


Bomb Disposal

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much his Department has spent on (a) acquiring and (b) maintaining hand-held mine detectors in each of the last 10 years.
Answer

The Ministry of Defence has procured a range of hand-held metal detecting equipments that can be used for detecting mines and IEDs. Costs are only available from financial year 2006-07, the year of initial purchase, for the current primary equipment and are broken down as follows:

£ million
Equipment Acquisition cost Maintenance cost
2006-07 1.168 0
2007-08 2.345 0
2008-09 5.066 0
2009-10 8.216 0.136

In addition, approximately £3 million in total over the last 10 years has been spent on a range of specialist metal detectors. To break this figure down further, could be done only at disproportionate cost.


Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
506 c1081-2W; 319157
Session
2009-10
Subjects
Armed forces Bomb disposal
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk