Home Defence Exercises (Hansard, 22 July 1988)

§ Mr. Ian Stewart

Nine separate military home defence exercises will be held this autumn. The details are as follows:

7 to 11 September: Exercise Autumn Tiger in South East District.
9 to 17 September: Exercise Eastern Shield in Eastern District.
9 to 17 September: Exercise Strong Link in North West District.
23 to 28 September: Exercise Northern Crusade in North East District.
1 to 9 October: Exercise Drake's Drum in South West, District.
1 to 9 October: Exercise Capital Guard in London District.
1 to 9 October: Exercise Triple Crown in Wales District.
8 to 15 October: Exercise Western Encounter in Western District.
22 October to 2 November: Exercise Bonnie Dundee in Scotland District.

I have asked the general officers commanding these exercises to ensure that full information about them is made available locally and that hon. Members whose constituencies are involved are invited to watch them. I have also asked the Army district commanders to ensure that there will be minimal disruption to the public. The majority of activities planned to take place outside military establishments and training areas will normally be held in remote areas and with the co-operation of the civil police.

The purpose of these exercises will be to test our current plans for a wide range of home defence operations. It is useful to exercise these plans at a period when international tension in Europe is low, so as to maintain effectiveness and to ensure that, if the need arose, they could be operated successfully in transition to war or war, when home defence would be an essential element of our overall defence capability. The military personnel involved in each exercise will be practising their task of defending installations in the United Kingdom—including, in a few cases, ports, airfields and other operational facilities—that are vital to our defence and to the reinforcement of NATO.

Serving alongside Regular Army personnel, elements of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force and members of the United States forces based in this country will be volunteers from the Territorial Army, the home service force and individual reservists. I particularly welcome their participation and I am grateful to their employers for releasing them for these important exercises. Their role in tension or war would be a vital one.

I also very much welcome the participation, at various times in these exercises, of a number of non-military organisations, including the police, fire and ambulance services and voluntary aid societies. They, too, would have a vital role in tension or war, and I am most grateful to them for finding the time and resources to take part in these exercises.

These exercises will be the first significant home defence field training since 1985. In that year we held a single, nationally based home defence exercise, Brave Defender. This autumn's exercise will be very different, taking place under separate district command arrangements and designed to test our plans and procedures at a more local level. I hope that all participants, however, will find them a valuable preparation for the next national home defence exercise, Brave Defender 2, which is due to take place in the early 1990s.