Mr. Alan W. WilliamsTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many sorties were conducted by service low flying aircraft(a) over Wales and (b) over mainland Britain in each of the years 1990 to the present. [91476]
§ Mr. SpellarThe information is not held in the precise form requested. Military low flying activity is recorded by Low Flying Areas (LFA) and number of movements. LFA 7 covers all of Wales apart from a small area in the north-east of Powys. The annual number of day movements within LFA 7 since 1990 is shown in the table, along with the number of movements booked in the UK Low Flying System as a whole.
Year in UKLFS2 Day movements1 in LFA 7 Day movements 1990 265,155 30,218 1991 215,391 23,795 1992 240,477 26,668 1993 207,808 22,348 1994 184,515 18,801 1995 182,516 18,020 1996 162,903 16,953 1997 156,781 15,649 1998 140,153 14,390 1 A movement is recorded each time an aircraft crosses an LFA boundary and a low flying sortie will often be made up of a number of movements 2 The UK Low Hying System covers the whole of the country, including both mainland Britain and the various islands