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Military Attaches

Volume 468: debated on Wednesday 28 November 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment has been undertaken to assess the impact on UK defence sales of the reduction in the number of defence attaché assigned to UK embassies and overseas missions. (166844)

The role of defence attachés is principally to promote the Government’s policies in the area of international security co-operation and to give support to current or potential UK operational commitments. Therefore, most defence attachés spend a small proportion of time dealing with defence exports. There are separate staff employed in UK embassies to promote defence exports, where it is necessary. We do not expect an adverse impact on defence sales arising from the redeployment of defence attachés.