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Armed Forces: Manpower

Volume 458: debated on Tuesday 13 March 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many soldiers from each country of the Commonwealth are employed in the Forces, broken down by (a) Army, (b) Royal Navy and (c) Royal Air Force. (125565)

The most recent data available for the nationality of Commonwealth personnel serving in the UK regular forces are shown in the following table.

Country

Naval Service at 6 October 2006

Army at 1 January 2007

Royal Air Force1 at 6 March 2006

Total Commonwealth

37,990

106,130

48,650

United Kingdom

37,535

99,495

48,445

Antigua

2

Australia

10

70

10

Bangladesh

2

5

Barbados

2

10

2

Belize

5

Botswana

10

Cameroon

30

Canada

20

60

20

Cyprus

2

2

Dominican Republic

2

15

Fiji

75

1,955

5

Gambia

5

100

2

Ghana

2

750

2

Grenada

2

50

Guyana

15

India

5

50

2

Jamaica

30

940

25

Kenya

5

120

5

Malawi

2

115

2

Malaysia

2

2

2

Malta

2

5

2

Mauritius

2

25

2

Namibia

2

New Zealand

5

65

5

Nigeria

2

80

Pakistan

2

5

2

Papua New Guinea

2

Seychelles

10

Sierra Leone

2

45

Singapore

2

South Africa

60

795

10

Sri Lanka

15

2

St. Kitts and Nevis

2

2

St. Lucia

5

230

2

St. Vincent

165

275

2

Swaziland

10

Tanzania

2

Tonga

10

Trinidad

25

70

10

Uganda

55

Zambia

2

20

Zimbabwe3

15

570

5

Other West Indies

2

Other Non-British4

15

85

‘—’denotes zero or rounded to zero

1 Royal Air Force data for service personnel who are non-UK nationals have been provided on an ad-hoc basis as nationality data are not centrally held. The figure for service personnel who are UK nationals has been inferred from the total strength of the RAF at 1 April 2006.

2 Fewer than five. All other figures are rounded to the nearest five.

3 Includes personnel with nationality recorded as Rhodesian.

4 Includes personnel with nationality recorded as British Commonwealth/Foreign, Other African Country and Other Asiatic Country, and 75 RAF personnel recorded as Commonwealth by birth, but with no nationality recorded.

Note:

Data are for UK regular forces (trained and untrained), including nursing services and excluding full time reserve service personnel, Gurkhas, the home service battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment and mobilised reservists.