§ Mr. McQuarrieasked the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if it is his policy that there will be no reduction in the Army strength from that existing at present in the territory of Gibraltar; and if he will make a statement;
(2) if he will ensure that there will be no cutback of naval repair work at the Gibraltar dockyard in the foreseeable future; and if he will make a statement;
(3) if he will ensure that there will be no reduction of Air Force services at the Gibraltar airport in the foreseeable future; and if he will make a statement;
(4) whether he has given any consideration to placing the responsibility for Gibraltar airport upon the Government of Gibraltar and removing the present Royal Air Force control of that airfield; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. GoodhartThere are no current plans to change the level of defence activity in Gibraltar but, as the Secretary of State for Defence made clear in the House in the recent Defence debate, we are examining a wide range of options for the future defence programme, none of which can be pre-empted at this time.
§ Mr. McQuarrieasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will have discussions with the Government of Gibraltar on the viability of creating commercial work in the naval dockyard in Gibraltar in order to reduce the dependency of the labour force on purely naval repairs; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. GoodhartCurrently, the Gibraltar dockyard has a full programme of naval work which requires the resources of the existing labour force; there is, therefore, little capacity to deploy to commercial business. Nevertheless, emergency repair work on merchant ships and foreign warships has been undertaken from time to time. Requests for work to be carried out on a regular basis will always be considered, and the dockyard agreed to provide docking facilities for a United Kingdom based merchant line some two years ago, although this was not taken up.