§ Mr. Tony BanksTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what were the costs to his Department arising from the annual conference of(a) the Liberal Democrats, (b) the Labour party and (c) the Conservative party.
§ Mr. SoamesIn response to requests from the respective regional police authorities for each conference a small number of specialist military personnel were deployed to assist the police in searching the conference areas for explosive devices and on standby for potential bomb disposal tasks. No readily identifiable additional costs to the defence budget arose from these operations.
In addition, staff from private offices visited Bournemouth in order to deal with departmental work. Travel, subsistence and communication costs were incurred on defence votes.