§ Mr. Andrew MitchellTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to his answer of 4 June 2003,Official Report, column 462W, to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley), on TETRA, what funds have been allocated to the national health monitoring study of Airwave police users; and when he expects the study to report. [121852]
§ Ms Blears£5 million has been allocated for the national health monitoring study of Airwave police users. This work includes two components: a long-term study to follow-up over 100,000 Airwave police users over 15 years, and a shorter-term detailed study of a small group of police officers. The detailed study will report after three years. The long-term study is statistical in nature and many years of data will be required to produce reliable results. An interim report will be available once five full years of data have been collected, some seven years from the start of the work. Regular updates on progress will be available on our website http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs/tetra.html.
§ Mr. SwireTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many masts each of the police constabularies have in their area for use by the new TETRA system; how many new masts are required by each constabulary to ensure full service for the system; and what the anticipated date is by which each constabulary will have full coverage. [122147]
§ Ms BlearsAirwave is the new TETRA radio system for police forces in England, Wales and Scotland. The network is the responsibility of Airwave 02, the Private Finance Initiative partner for Airwave. It is estimated that around 3,000 masts will be required to provide coverage for Airwave across the country. Final figures for the number of new masts in each constabulary will not be available until the end of the rollout, as adjustments will continue to be made across the system in order to optimise coverage. Airwave is currently available to 14 forces and the rollout is expected to be complete by mid-2005.