§ Mr. GregoryTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) of 17 May,Official Report, column 304, what further changes to the Royal Air Force are planned under "Options for Change".
§ Mr. Archie HamiltonThe Royal Air Force will shortly be implementing two further measures foreshadowed in the statement by my hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence on "Options for Change" on 25 July at columns 470–73. First, there will be a small reduction in the number of Nimrod aircraft in service at RAF Kinloss and RAF St. Mawgan, from 1 July 1991. One aircraft will be withdrawn from service at RAF ST. Mawgan, and two from RAF Kinloss.
Secondly, the Buccaneer operational conversion unit at RAF Lossiemouth will start to disband from 1 October 1991, with residual training requirements met by the Buccaneer squadrons themselves. This is the first step in the programme to replace the Buccaneer force at RAF Lossiemouth with Tornado aircraft equipped with Sea Eagle missiles for the anti-surface warfare role. These changes are not expected to result in any redundancies at the three stations.