§ Mr. MacFarquharasked the Secretary of State for Defence (1) how many officers and Ministry of Defence personnel are trained each year to obtain a certified proficiency in Arabic;
(2) how many officers and Ministry of Defence personnel are trained each year to obtain a certified proficiency in Portuguese;
(3) how many officers and Ministry of Defence personnel are trained each year to obtain a certified proficiency in Polish;
(4) how many officers and Ministry of Defence personnel are trained each year to obtain a certified proficiency in Persian;
537W(5) how many officers and Ministry of Defence personnel are trained each year to obtain a certified proficiency in Japanese;
(6) how many officers and Ministry of Defence personnel are trained each year to obtain a certified proficiency in Chinese;
(7) how many officers and Ministry of Defence personnel are trained each year to obtain a certified proficiency in German;
(8) how many officers and Ministry of Defence personnel are trained each year to obtain a certified proficiency in Italian;
(9) how many officers and Ministry of Defence personnel are trained each year to obtain a certified proficiency in French;
(10) how many officers and Ministry of Defence personnel are trained each year to obtain a certified proficiency in Spanish;
(11) how many officers and Ministry of Defence personnel are trained each year to obtain a certified proficiency in Russian;
(12) how many officers and Ministry of Defence personnel are trained each year to obtain a certified proficiency in Czech.
§ Dr. GilbertThe numbers of Service officers and Ministry of Defence civilians who receive language training to a certified level of proficiency vary from year to year. Following are the figures which are immediately available for 1976:
Language Service Officers Ministry of Defence Civilians Arabic … 88 — Chinese … 9 1 Czech … — — French … 55 23 German … Approximately 1,270 16 Italian … 7 — Japanese … 5 — Persian … 3 — Polish … 2 — Portuguese … 5 1 Russian … 40 2 Spanish … 8 4 The figures for Ministry of Defence civilians are those which are recorded centrally. To produce more comprehensive statistics would involve a disproportionate amount of time and effort.
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MacFarquharasked the Secretary of State for Defence (1) how many people working on defence sales have passed a Civil Service proficiency examination in Portuguese;
(2) how many people working on defence sales have passed a Civil Service proficiency examination in Arabic;
(3) how many people working on defence sales have passed a Civil Service proficiency examination in Persian.
§ Dr. GilbertNone in the Defence Sales Organisation.
§ Mr. MacFarquharasked the Secretary of State for Defence how many of the military/naval/air force attachés serving in Iran, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the USSR, Indonesia, Japan, China, Korea, Egypt, France, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Italy and West Germany have passed a Civil Service examination in the language of the country to which they are accredited.
§ Dr. Gilbert18; and a further four have passed an examination set by the Armed Forces.