Kosovo (Hansard, 7 May 1999)

§ Mr. Maples
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the estimated weekly cost to the British Government of military operations in connection with Kosovo. [81621]

§ Mr. George Robertson
[holding answer 21 April 1999]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson) on 15 April 1999, Official Report, columns 323–24. This information will be updated in due course. However, as costs of operations vary from week to week, the provision of a weekly figure would be misleading.

§ Mr. Gill
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what has been the additional cost of the conflict in Yugoslavia. [81964]
480W

§ Mr. Corbyn
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate he has made of the cost of the conflict with Yugoslavia to his Department; and if he will make a statement. [81970]

§ Mr. George Robertson
[holding answer 26 April 1999]: I refer to the answer I gave to the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson) on 15 April 1999, Official Report, columns 323–24. This information will be updated in due course.

§ Mr. Keith Simpson
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proportion of the TA is (i) deployed and (ii) warned to deploy for operations in the Balkans. [81664]

§ Mr. George Robertson
[pursuant to his reply, 22 April 1999, c. 633]: I regret that the figure of 420 I gave of the Territorial Army at the time deployed to the Balkans was incorrect. The correct figure should have been 317, representing some 0.63 per cent. of the overall TA. It is likely that further TA troops will be deployed.

§ Mr. Llew Smith
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the chemical weapons capability maintained by Yugoslavia. [83290]

§ Mr. George Robertson
The former Yugoslavia did have an offensive chemical warfare programme, which included small stocks of chemical weapons. Serbia inherited some elements of this in 1992, but the exact status of this programme is unknown. It is assessed that the current threat to our forces from chemical warfare is low.