§ Mr. Maurice Macmillanasked the Secretary of State for Defence if there has been any change in the £ sterling/deutschemark exchange rate used by his Department when calculating salary payments to troops in the British Army of the Rhine since the beginning of 1977; if so, when such adjustments took place; and what effect they had upon the real value of salaries paid to soldiers serving in the Federal Republic of Germany.
§ Dr. GilbertI refer the hon. Member to my reply yesterday to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat).—[Vol. 965, c.62–3.] I am sending him copies of the tables referred to in the reply.
§ Mr. Maurice Macmillanasked the Secretary of State for Defence which currencies are accepted for payments by soldiers and their families in NAAFI facilities in the Federal Republic of Germany; and on what exchange rate the NAAFI was operating on 1 January 1977, 1 January 1978, 1 June 1978 and 1 February 1979.
§ Mr. Robert C. BrownFor cash payments for goods and services in the Federal Republic of Germany the currency exclusively in use in NAAFI is the deutschemark. A United Kingdom cheque is acceptable but to meet exchange control requirements the Service man or Service woman must certify that the cheque is within their net pay and allowances earned outside the scheduled territories during their current tour of duty; conversion is at the public general accounting rate used by the Services in force at the time.
The price of goods of United Kingdom origin on sale by NAAFI in the Federal German Republic on each of the days 153W quoted was established by reference to the forces fixed rate of exchange (FFR) (£1=DM 4.15 throughout the period), this being the rate used to convert Service pay and allowances to local currency.
On 1 March 1979 the FFR changed to £1=DM 3.75 which date NAAFI agreed, following consultations with the Ministry of Defence, to adopt the Services general accounting rate as the basis of a goods pricing policy for items of United Kingdom origin. This ensures that the price of such goods is more readily responsive to the state of the £1 against the deutschemark.