§ 2.35 p.m.
§ BARONESS STOCKSMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the annual cost of maintaining the British sovereign bases in Cyprus; how many British Service and civilian personnel and how many Cypriots are employed in them; and for what purpose are these sovereign bases maintained.]
§ LORD WINTERBOTTOMMy Lords, as my noble friend Lord Shackleton explained on July 24, the only figure that can be given is the foreign exchange figure. The figure for Cyprus for the current year, estimated on the same basis as the figures in Annex H of the Statement on the Defence Estimates of this year, is £15.5 million. The number of British Service personnel in Cyprus is lust over 8,000. There are also about 1,000 British Service personnel serving with the United Nations force in Cyprus. There are about 660 United Kingdom based and expatriate British civilians employed by the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Public Building and Works, and there is estimated to be just over 6,000 locally engaged civilians employed by these Departments in Cyprus by the end of the financial year. The forces and facilities in the bases provide support of various kinds for our allies under treaty and other commitments, and for the United Nations force in Cyprus. The bases and associated treaty arrangements also provide administrative, staging, training, communications and signals facilities for our forces inside and outside the Island of Cyprus.
§ BARONESS STOCKSMy Lords, may I ask a supplementary question? How far will the evacuation of our forces from Aden make it unnecessary to keep a force in Cyprus? The second question I should 1046 like to ask is: how many of the British forces who are not attached to the United Nations force are in fact partly based on, and indeed are included in the payments and costs of, the bases, or how far are they simply transferred to the United Nations force in the same manner as the Canadian contingent in that force? Thirdly, are Her Majesty's Government prepared to stop further building of houses, offices, amenities of various kinds, shopping centres, cinemas and the rest, in view of the fact that in due course these bases will no longer be needed for military staging purposes?
§ LORD WINTERBOTTOMMy Lords, the noble Baroness has asked me three questions. So far as the first one is concerned, it is a little wide of the main Question that she asked, but the function of Cyprus is separate and distinct from the function of Aden. It has a continuing use. The second question related to the 1,000 British Servicemen serving with the United Nations force in Cyprus. Of course they must be based on the British sovereign bases in Cyprus itself. As to the calculations concerned, I cannot, with the information available to me, distinguish between the cost of these 1,000 men and the whole defence complex within the Island of Cyprus. The third question will naturally be under consideration, with every other aspect of defence policy which goes on annually.
§ BARONESS STOCKSMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his answers to my questions, but I must confess that I am still a little backward in my under-standing of the future uses of these bases.
§ LORD WINTERBOTTOMMy Lords, at the moment these bases are essential to our defence policy.
LORD THURLOWMy Lords, can the noble Lord tell us whether the cost is going to be much more as a result of devaluation? Is Cyprus devaluing?
§ LORD WINTERBOTTOMMy Lords, yes, Cyprus has devalued, and we do not believe that there is going to be a significant change, assuming every other arrangement remains unaltered.
§ LORD SEGALMy Lords, would not my noble friend agree that Britain has hitherto contributed by far the greater part of the United Nations peace-keeping 1047 force in Cyprus, and has been the means of saving countless Cypriot lives; and that she still has a most vital function to perform in that Island for the cause of the United Nations?
§ LORD WINTERBOTTOMMy Lords, I would completely agree with my noble friend.
§ LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICKMy Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, whether the Government will assure your Lordships' House that since the sovereign base areas are vital to us so long as we continue to accept our treaty obligations to CENTO and NATO, there is no intention whatever of giving them up? And, secondly, are the Government aware that because of the recent rundown our ground forces are now heavily overstretched?
§ LORD WINTERBOTTOMMy Lords, I have said that these bases are an essential part of our defensive pattern at the moment and will so remain. I have noted the second question of the noble Lord.