To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many armed forces personnel (a) entered and (b) completed fast jet training in each aircraft type in each of the last five years. (284519)

The following table provides the number of RAF and RN personnel who (a) entered and (b) completed fast jet training and the type of aircraft they trained on in each of the last five years. All personnel start training on the Hawk but move on to receive more advanced training on other types of aircraft.

With the introduction of Typhoon we are bringing into service a state of the art multi-role weapons system, suitable and adaptable to meet the challenges of the 21st century. It is in certain key aspects already a significantly more capable platform than the aircraft it replaced and it continues to develop and improve. Typhoon requires only a one-person crew rather than a two-person crew like the Tornado F3, which is being phased out. Additionally, as the 2004 Defence White Paper “Delivering Security in a Changing World” made clear, “the effectiveness of modern precision weapons and sensors, which can be used in all weathers, day and night, mean that highly accurate air delivered offensive effects can be achieved with fewer fast jets than before... Similarly the air threat to deployed forces has greatly reduced and the capability of our air superiority aircraft and other air defence assets is continuing to improve. So we need fewer aircraft and fewer ground-based air defence systems to meet the threat.”

The number of fast-jet aircrew completing training is sufficient to meet training requirements, and aircrew training for Typhoon is planned to increase over the next few years as the aircraft comes into wider service. Under current plans, by 2014-15 there will be an annual requirement for 16 newly qualified Typhoon pilots each year, to support a requirement for 92 front-line Typhoon pilots within a total force of 122 pilots.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence in what proportion of his Department’s military training exercises (a) an injury to armed forces service personnel, (b) damage to public property and (c) damage to private property has occurred in each of the last 10 years. (286357)

The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. I can assure the House, however, that every effort is taken to ensure that our service personnel undertake military training safely and to minimise damage to either public or private property.

We can identify the number of service personnel who have sustained an injury whilst on a training exercise as reported on the MOD Health and Safety systems between 2006 and 2008¹.

¹ Figures have been rounded to the nearest five.