Written questions by Cartlidge.

Whether the Defence Recycling and Disposals Team have commenced commercial negotiations with potential buyers for (a) HMS Bulwark and (b) HMS Albion.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 13 January 2025 to question 22653.

With reference to the oral contribution by the Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry of 6 January 2025, Official Report, column 586, what the disposal plan is for (a) HMS Albion and (b) HMS Bulwark.

HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark are currently laid up awaiting disposal. Both ships require costly and time-consuming refits, and as such, were not considered a cost-effective use of taxpayers' money. The Royal Navy is exploring options to sell both HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark in a government-to-government sale. These vessels had, in effect, been retired by the previous Government. Their sale will save £9M a year in maintenance costs in addition to the receipt from the sale, unlocking as much funding as possible to invest in modernisation, as well as reinforcing relationships with international partners.

Whether he has had recent discussions with the Secretary of State for Education on the potential impact of protest-related activity on university campuses on the ability of defence companies to participate in careers fairs.

This Government recognises the critical importance of attracting new entrants into the defence sector, in order to ensure we have the skilled workforce needed to sustain a vibrant, innovation and competitive UK defence industrial base. The Ministry of Defence is working closely with the Department for Education and Skills England to address the skills landscape in the defence sector. The Defence Industrial Strategy will further progress the Government’s commitment to ensuring the UK defence sector has the right people and skills to meet the challenges of the future.

What his planned timetable is for publishing his Department's annual statistics on armed forces equipment.

The UK Armed Forces Equipment and Formations 2024 publication has been delayed due to a data quality review and has a provisional release date of February 2025. This is stated in the Statistics release calendar: UK armed forces equipment and formations 2024 - Accredited official statistics announcement - GOV.UK

What steps he is taking to help prevent the leaking of military secrets during online war games.

Unauthorised release of information endangers our national security and makes protecting the United Kingdom harder. As such it is contrary to the ethos and policies of the Ministry of Defence, and we take the unauthorised release of information very seriously. Our policy stresses that information should be handled and distributed based on need-to-know, where access to sensitive information is no wider than necessary for the efficient conduct of official work, and is limited to those with a business need and the appropriate personnel security clearance. This approach is reinforced in mandatory training and through our Cyber Security Awareness, Behaviour and Culture campaign, which reinforces the importance of managing online footprints and not sharing information inappropriately.

What steps his Department is taking to help mitigate injury rates among armed forces personnel during training exercises.

The Ministry of Defence is committed to the health and safety of our people and we have robust policies and processes in place to safely manage our training activities. Defence activity can be inherently hazardous. This risk to our people is rendered as low as reasonably practicable and tolerable during training by ensuring that its design and delivery are subject to strict safety procedures, rigorous risk assessment and assurance. All Defence training is risk assessed and conducted within a Safe System of Training (SST), which sets the conditions under which training is delivered. Like a Safe System of Work, a SST puts in place control measures arising from a risk assessment, in order to manage identified hazards, which are broken down into four elements; safe person, safe equipment, safe place and safe practice. The SST also recognises that those undergoing training cannot be assumed to be competent until they have successfully completed their training and gained the necessary experience.

What information his Department holds on the number of occasions classified military secrets have been leaked on the online war simulation entitled War Thunder.

It has been the long-standing policy of the current and previous Governments that we do not comment on operational security matters. The Ministry of Defence takes the security of our assets extremely seriously and we have robust measures in place to assure the integrity of these arrangements. When any type of security incident is raised, it is reviewed by security personnel and subjected to an initial security risk assessment, with further action taken on a proportionate basis.

For what reason have the annual armed forces equipment statistics not been published.

The UK Armed Forces Equipment and Formations 2024 publication has been delayed due to a data quality review and has a provisional release date of February 2025. This is stated in the Statistics release calendar: UK armed forces equipment and formations 2024 - Accredited official statistics announcement - GOV.UK

What steps his Department is taking to avoid underreporting of incidents relating to injuries of civilian and military personnel.

The Ministry of Defence is committed to the health and safety of our people. We recognise the importance of reporting all safety occurrences. We have specific safety occurrence reporting policy. This mandates the reporting of all safety occurrences relating to Defence personnel, visitors and contractors that are undertaking Defence activities, using Defence equipment or on the Defence estate. We regularly review our policies to ensure they remain in line with good practice. The continued development and rollout of the pan-Defence safety occurrence reporting system, MySafety, will further strengthen the capture of data by streamlining the reporting process for users. With MySafety, personnel will benefit from a standardised, more accessible, single safety occurrence reporting platform, and be able to raise timely occurrences from the occurrence location.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support farm businesses to adapt to adverse weather conditions.

The Government inherited flood assets in their worst condition on record following years of underinvestment by the previous Government – only 92% of the Environment Agency’s 38,000 high consequence assets are currently at required condition. To ensure we protect the country from the devastating impacts of flooding, we will invest £2.4 billion over 2024/25 and 2025/26 to improve flood resilience, by building, maintaining, and repairing flood defences. The Government also announced an additional £50 million of investment into internal drainage boards, supporting farmers and rural communities from the impacts of flooding. The new Flood Resilience Taskforce provides oversight of national and local flood resilience and preparedness ahead of and after the winter flood season. Additionally, Defra’s farming budget will be £2.4 billion in 2025/26. This will include the largest ever budget directed at sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history: £1.8 billion for environmental land management schemes. This funding will deliver improvements to cover a range of objectives including support to improve resilience to flooding.

What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the MySafety (DURALS) system in recording incidents involving defence personnel.

MySafety is the new pan-Defence safety occurrence reporting system which is being rolled out across Defence. Once complete, the introduction of MySafety will provide a standardised, more accessible, single safety occurrence reporting platform to Defence personnel, that focuses heavily on the user experience and offers greater functionality than current reporting systems. With MySafety, personnel are able to raise timely occurrences from the occurrence location using mobile electronic devices. It also offers improved data exploitation and analysis, enabling Defence to build a greater understanding of safety occurrences and learn lessons more quickly, thus enhancing safety in Defence. MySafety has already rolled out to the Army, RAF and UK Strategic Command. The majority of Defence organisations are expected to transition to MySafety during 2025. Early indications suggest the system is likely increasing reporting rates, however, comparisons with data from previous years should be avoided due to varying levels of operational and training activity.

What proportion of the cost of leasing the Diego Garcia military base will be covered by the United States.

The Diego Garcia military base is a joint UK-US facility and is an essential part of the UK-US defence relationship. It is not normal practice for the UK to reveal the value of its payments for military bases anywhere across the globe.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to help mitigate the impact of (a) increased rainfall and (b) storms on arable farm output.

The Government inherited flood assets in their worst condition on record following years of underinvestment by the previous Government – only 92% of the Environment Agency’s 38,000 high consequence assets are currently at required condition. To ensure we protect the country from the devastating impacts of flooding, we will invest £2.4 billion over 2024/25 and 2025/26 to improve flood resilience, by building, maintaining, and repairing flood defences. The Government also announced an additional £50 million of investment into internal drainage boards, supporting farmers and rural communities from the impacts of flooding. The new Flood Resilience Taskforce provides oversight of national and local flood resilience and preparedness ahead of and after the winter flood season. Additionally, Defra’s farming budget will be £2.4 billion in 2025/26. This will include the largest ever budget directed at sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history: £1.8 billion for environmental land management schemes. This funding will deliver improvements to cover a range of objectives including support to improve resilience to flooding.

Food and Rural Affairs, when he has met representatives of farming businesses in South Suffolk constituency to discuss recent trends in farm incomes.

Ministers and officials regularly meet with a range of farming stakeholders, including the National Farmers Union, the Country Land and Business Association, and the Tenant Farmers Association. We will continue to meet with stakeholders to ensure their views are heard.

What discussion he has had with representatives of the United States administration on the cost to US armed forces of the leaseback of the Diego Garcia military base as part of the Chagos settlement.

The Defence Secretary is in regular contact with Secretary Austin on a range of issues, including the British Indian Ocean Territory / Chagos Archipelago. The Diego Garcia military base is a joint UK-US facility and is an essential part of the UK-US defence relationship.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of recent trends in the level of farm incomes in South Suffolk constituency.

The Government has committed to support farmers through a farming budget of £5 billion over two years, including £2.4 billion in 2025/26. We publish regular accredited official statistics on farm income in England and other data related to farm businesses. For example, on 14 November 2024, we published our Farm Business Income statistics (Farm business income - GOV.UK), which looked at how Farm Business Income has changed in 2023/24, including the contribution of Direct Payments and agri-environment payments to farm incomes and analysis by farm type. The Farm Business Survey is based on a sample of around 1,400 farm businesses across England. While it is possible to produce some sub national information, the sample size means it is not possible to produce statistically robust breakdowns at constituency level. In England, Farm Business Income has seen substantial year-on-year fluctuations over the past 15 years driven by a multitude of factors which include weather and market fluctuations. For most farm types, Farm Business Income in 2023/24 saw very large falls relative to the exceptional highs in 2022/23. At the all-farm level and a longer-term view, the average Farm Business Income of approximately £82,000 for the agricultural transition (2021/22-2023/24) remains above the pre-transition average of approximately £58,000 (2018/19-2020/21). The Secretary of State discussed the department’s approach to the problem of low farming income across Britain at the Oxford Farming Conference on 9 January, and his full remarks can be found here. We will continue to carry out appropriate and timely assessments of our interventions to inform policy development.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of adverse weather conditions on arable farm output in South Suffolk constituency in each of the last three years.

There are multiple factors that influence arable production, for example farmers will make business decisions in response to market signals such as input and output prices, so we are unable to attribute what degree of change between years is solely as a result of the weather. Unfortunately, we do not produce output statistics at a constituency level.

Whether he plans to allow UK defence companies to participate in (a) careers fairs and (b) related events on university campuses.

The Ministry of Defence works closely with UK defence companies to highlight the significant benefits of a career in the defence sector. We recognise that attracting and retaining the right mix of skills is critical to sustaining a vibrant, innovative and competitive UK defence sector, and this is an important area of focus in the development of the Defence Industrial Strategy.Decisions relating to UK defence companies participating in careers fairs and related events on university campuses are for the companies themselves. Such events provide students valuable opportunities to learn about different career possibilities in the defence sector.

Whether his Department has received enquiries from international partners on the potential sale of (a) HMS Bulwark and (b) HMS Albion.

The Royal Navy is exploring options to sell both HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark in a government-to-government sale. These vessels had, in effect, been retired by the previous Government. Their sale will save £9 million a year in maintenance costs in addition to the receipt from the sale, unlocking as much funding as possible to invest in modernisation, as well as reinforcing relationships with international partners.

Whether he has had discussions with the Chief of the Air Staff on procuring a replacement for the Hawk T2.

Ministers regularly discuss the future capability requirements of the Royal Air Force with the Chief of the Air Staff. I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Huntingdon on 3 December 2024 to Question 15292.