HC Deb 08 May 2001 vol 368 c14W
Mr. McNamara

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what information is routinely collected to monitor the use of plastic baton rounds. [159547]

Mr. Spellar

Information on plastic baton rounds fired by the Army is collected from a number of sources: the daily incident briefs (DIBs), brigade daily Northern Ireland reports (NIREPs) and plastic baton log reports. The information is held for internal use by Headquarters Northern Ireland, which also relays details of any baton round sage to the RUC as part of normal liaison activities.

Mr. McNamara

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 13 March 2001,Official Report, column 507W, if he will extend the table provided in order to record in each year since 1991, the number of (a) PBRs fired, (b) target hits and (c) injuries and fatalities. [159548]

Mr. Spellar

The only record we have of the number of targets hit since 1991 is the same as the number of injuries which appears in the table given in my answer of 13 March 2001,Official Report, columns 507–08W.

Mr. McNamara

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the muzzle velocity is of the L21 Al baton round. [158506]

Mr. Spellar

The muzzle velocity of baton rounds is normally measured 2m from the gun muzzle. At 2m, the average (mean) velocity of a sample of 360 L21A1 baton rounds fired from L104 guns was 71.4 metres per second (m/s).