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Afghanistan: Official Visits

Volume 487: debated on Monday 9 February 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many (a) delays and (b) cancellations of VIP visits there have been in Afghanistan in the last 12 months. (251649)

Every effort is made to ensure that VIP visits to operational theatres proceed smoothly. However, on occasion, there are inevitably difficulties due to adverse weather, equipment serviceability and competing operational requirements for finite air and aviation resources. Visits are also on occasion cancelled for reasons without the control of my Department. We do not collate detailed statistics on the number of VIP visits delayed or cancelled and generating robust statistics could be achieved only at disproportionate cost.