Nuclear Weapons Accident Response Exercises

HC Deb 15 October 2001 vol 372 cc953-4W

Matthew Taylor

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many exercises to test procedures for dealing with accidents involving nuclear weapons will be held in 2001; what the(a) dates and (b) locations are of each of these exercises; what the titles and scenarios are of each of these exercises: and how many of these exercises involve the US Government. [6573]

Mr. Hoon

The following table gives the current date, name and location of nuclear weapon accident response exercises for 2001. I am withholding details of the exercise scenarios under Exemption 1 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information. I can confirm that none of the exercises involves US participation.

Month	Name	Location
May	NW Convoy Group Standardisation	Lincolnshire
June	Exercise Bowline	Coulport
July	RAF Station NAR team Standardisation1	Wiltshire
September	MOD Police Nuclear Weapon Convoy Standardisation	Lincolnshire
October	RAF Station NAR team Standardisation1	Suffolk
October	Bronze Endeavour	Norfolk
November	RAF Station NAR team Standardisation1	Oxfordshire
November	Exercise Senator	Bedfordshire
1 RAF Station Nuclear Accident Response (NAR) teams provide immediate response forces for the air transportation of nuclear weapons