UN Volunteer Force (Hansard, 11 January 1999)

§ Mr. Doug Henderson

The Government do not support the concept of a permanent United Nations Volunteer Force because it would involve duplicating expensive capabilities that already exist among member states, and because it would be impractical to create a single force that could cater for every eventuality. We believe the most effective way to provide the UN with military support is through the Secretary-General's Standby Arrangements initiative. Since 1994, the United Kingdom has declared a range of forces to be potentially available under the United Nations' Standby Forces Planning Arrangement to facilitate the rapid deployment of forces once political decisions on their use have been made. Following last year's Strategic Defence Review, we have decided to strengthen our commitment by declaring the whole range of our rapidly deployable forces as potentially available to the United Nations. This will be formalised in a Memorandum of Understanding which we plan to have ready for signature by March this year.

The forces declared in the Memorandum of Understanding will be drawn from the new Joint Rapid Reaction Forces, which will have an initial operational capability available by 1 April 1999 and be fully operational by 2001. Each of the elements of this force will be held at graduated states of readiness, ranging from 24 hours up to and including 30 days.

We believe the training and readiness of the United Kingdom's Armed Forces to be the equal of the best in the world. Nevertheless, we remain committed to seeking improvements to these high standards. That is why we announced, also as part of the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, that the Chief of Joint Operations will have increased authority for enhancing the training and preparedness of the Joint Rapid Reaction Forces.