Army Units: Withdrawal from Germany (Hansard, 19 May 1999)

§ Lord Gilbert

We stressed in the Strategic Defence Review that the forward basing of ground forces in Germany would remain a key aspect of British defence policy. 1(UK) Armoured Division, with its three brigades, will continue to be stationed in Germany, together with United Kingdom Support Command (Germany) and the Headquarters of the Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps, with its signals brigades. The withdrawal of some units to the United Kingdom will, however, mean that we have a reduced requirement for barracks accommodation and can plan to return to the German authorities at least one Army barracks. The Army has now concluded its studies of its barracks requirement, and we are in a position to give a clearer indication of the likely impact, and timescale, of these moves, which are, to an extent, dependent on the timescale within which refurbished accommodation becomes available in the United Kingdom. The process of withdrawal will be phased and we do not expect that full withdrawal of the about 2,500 British troops that we announced will be completed until 2005 at the earliest. However, barracks are now available in the UK to accommodate 1st Royal Tank Regiment, currently located at Paderborn.

The plan is, therefore, to withdraw this unit by August of this year. To make best use of the barracks vacated in Germany, and to meet our operational requirements more effectively, we intend to move 35 Engineer Regiment, currently based in Hameln, to Paderborn, Internal moves within Hameln will enable Bindon Barracks to be handed back to the Federal authorities by 2002.

Our plans for the later phases of the withdrawals are much less certain at the moment and many details have yet to be worked out. Our current assumptions are that there will be two further phases, the first involving the surrender of a barracks in Osnabruck following the withdrawal of an armoured regiment from there. We do not expect this second phase to commence before the year 2001, or to be complete until some time after that.

The third and final phase will involve the withdrawal of an armoured regiment from 7th Armoured Brigade, which is based in Hohne. In this case, it is expected that there will be a regrouping of units of the 7th Armoured Brigade with the result that the requirement for Trenchard Barracks, Celle, will cease, although some married quarters are likely to be retained. This last phase is unlikely to take place before the year 2005.

Finally, we should say that these withdrawal plans are predicated on our current level of operational commitments in the Balkans, and that a change in the situation there may affect our basing plans.