§ Mr. Ashdownasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the nationality of forces involved and the total number of occasions on which foreign armed forces have invoked the immunity provisions of the Visiting Forces Act 1952 and the International Headquarters and Defence Organisations Act 1964 for (a) civil offences and (b) criminal offences committed in Great Britain, in each of the following years: (i) 1980–81, (ii) 1981–82 and (iii) 1982–83.
§ Mr. MellorNeither Act confers any immunity from the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom courts: they define the circumstances in which, when there is concurrent jurisdiction, the United Kingdom courts and the service courts of a visiting force have primary jurisdiction in criminal cases. Information about the number of occasions on which the United Kingdom's primary jurisdiction has been waived to allow a person to be tried by the service courts of a visiting force is not centrally available.