Written question asked by Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative) on Wednesday, 27 October 2004, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 18 November 2004. It was answered by Adam Ingram (Labour) on Thursday, 18 November 2004 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Ministry of Defence

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the interval between operational tours since 1999-2000 has been for the (a) Royal Armoured Corps, (b) Royal Artillery, (c) Royal Engineers, (d) Royal Signals and (e) Infantry. - Inc fact that info placed in Library (Dep 04/2038).

Answer: Mr. Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the interval between operational tours since 1999-2000 has been for the (a) Royal Armoured Corps, (b) Royal Artillery, (c) Royal Engineers, (d) Royal Signals and (e) Infantry. [195050] Mr. Ingram: The details of operational tour intervals for the (a) Royal Armoured Corps (RAC), (b) Royal Artillery (RA), (c) Royal Engineers (RE), (d) Royal Signals (R Signals) and (e) Infantry since 1999 are not held centrally and can be provided only at disproportionate cost. The equivalent details for the RAC, RA and Infantry for the period July 2001 to October 2004 are, however, provided in the tables which have been placed in the Library. It has not been possible to provide the actual tour intervals for RE and R Signals primarily due to the nature of their deployments, which tend to be at sub unit level or below, rather than unit level. Deployments have been defined as unaccompanied unit level operational tours.

Secondary information