§ Baroness Scotland of Asthalasked Her Majesty's Government:
What progress they have made on the implementation of the Strategic Defence Review Joint Initiatives. [HL1825]
§ The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Gilbert)The Joint Rapid Reaction Forces, JRRF, concept builds on the Joint Rapid Deployment Force to provide a pool of highly capable force elements, maintained at high and very high readiness and trained to undertake short notice force projection operations of all kinds. We plan to have this larger, much improved and more balanced capability in place by October 2001. The forces that are needed to meet the JRRF requirement have already been identified and an initial operational capability will be achieved on 1 April 1999.
The Joint Force Headquarters, which is co-located at Northwood with the Permanent Joint Headquarters in peacetime, will be expanded to enable it to command two simultaneous operations. It will be provided with a dedicated signals squadron drawn from 30 Signal Regiment based at Bramcote in Warwickshire.
The authority of the Chief of Joint Operations, based at Northwood, will be increased and he will assume greater responsibility for joint training, standards and exercises. To assist him in this task, a new 2* post, that of Chief of Joint Force Operational Readiness and Training, CJFORT, will be created from 1 April 1999.
To meet the need for increased deployability and flexibility in ground based air defence, a Joint Rapier Training Unit will be formed at RAF Honington on 1 April 1999.
Recognising that the proliferation of biological and chemical weapons programmes presents a continuing threat to our deployable forces, a Joint NBC Regiment will be established from 1 April 1999, initially at RAF Honington for at least four years. The regiment will consist of Army personnel mainly from 1st Royal Tank Regiment and RAF personnel from the RAF Regiment. It will also include elements of the Territorial Army and Royal Auxiliary Air Force.
A Defence NBC HQ will be established at Winterbourne Gunner on 1 April 1999. It will control both the Joint NBC Regiment and the Defence NBC Centre, command responsibilities for which will transfer from the Army Training and Recruiting Agency to RAF Strike Command on 1 April 1999.
A Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre will be formed, located at Shrivenham. An Implementation Team will form at the beginning of April in London and will establish an Initial Capability at Shrivenham from September this year. It is planned to achieve a full capability from April 2000.