§ Mr. KeetchTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proportion of UK front-line capability was available to the United Nations for peace support and humanitarian operations in(a) July 1998 and (b) April 2002; and if he will make a statement. [51488]
§ Mr. IngramThe United Kingdom does not earmark specific forces for peacekeeping operations, but under the UN's standby arrangements system, designed to facilitate the rapid deployment of forces once political decisions have been made, we have declared a range of forces with information on capabilities and readiness. We announced, as part of the Strategic Defence Review, our intention to declare the full range of our rapidly deployable forces, additional strategic lift and logistics capabilities as potentially available to the UN. This new declaration was incorporated into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which the Government signed with the UN in June 1999.
The MOU makes it clear that we would be prepared to consider the provision of forces up to a full brigade size to meet the specific needs of a UN operation. It is not possible to say precisely which of the forces listed in the MOU are available at any one time. The exact availability of the forces for peacekeeping depends on a range of factors, not least other continuing and known future commitments. The decision to commit United Kingdom forces to any UN operation will continue to be a national one.