HC Deb 02 February 2000 vol 343 c592W
Mr. Menzies Campbell

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the average number of maintenance man-hours per driving hour for(a) Warrior variants, (b) Challenger 1, (c) Challenger 2, (d) Saxon variants, (e) AVF 430 variants, (f) Sabre, (g) Striker, (h) Scimitar, (i) Spartan, (j) Sultan, (k) Samaritan and (l) Samson in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [107548]

Mr. Spellar

The information requested is not held in the format requested and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

Driver hours are not used as currency for measuring equipment usage. Usage is controlled through activity set by annual track mileage allocations for each vehicle type. Maintenance in the Land environment is different from that in, for example, the Air environment where they use largely scheduled maintenance based on flying hours. Maintenance of Army tanks and vehicles is achieved through a mix of planned maintenance (servicing based on time and mileage) and reactive repair maintenance. The latter regime is the larger element.