Armed Forces: Manpower

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the peace establishment was of the (a) 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh, (b) 1st Battalion Irish Guards, (c) 4th Battalion The Rifles and (d) 1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery before its deployment to Iraq; what the strength was of the battalion on deployment; how many reinforcements to the battalion were received from (i) the regular Army, (ii) the Territorial Army and (iii) the regular Army Reserves; how many of all ranks remained in the UK (A) on recruitment duties, (B) as physically unfit to deploy and (C) in barracks in reserve; and what the battalion’s battle casualty replacement policy is. (182384)

The following table provides the information requested.

	2R Welsh	4 Rifles	1RHA	1IG
Peace Establishment prior to deployment	760	670	559	633
Strength on Deployment	522	587	388	409
Level of reinforcement from Regular Army	45	0	0	0
Level of reinforcement from Reg. Reserves	1	0	0	0
Level of reinforcement from Territorial Army	36	2	27	0
Unit personnel left behind on recruiting duties	27	21	8	0
Unit personnel physically unfit to deploy	21	20	30	23
Rear Party Strength¹	79	95	102	93
¹ Figures for Rear Party strength exclude those personnel listed as physically unfit to deploy or on recruiting duties.

With regard to Battlefield Casualty Replacement policy I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 7 January 2008, Official Report, column 50W, which applies across the Army.

Volume 471: debated on Wednesday 30 January 2008