To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proportion of his Department's planned military training exercises were cancelled before they took place in each of the last five years. (314177)

Success in Afghanistan is our main effort, and will remain our principal commitment for as long as it takes. Our approach at this time must be and is Afghanistan first. All exercises that better prepare our forces for operations in Afghanistan will continue but those that are considered not to directly support our effort, have limited training value to support our effort, or where the planned objectives for that exercises can be achieved elsewhere have been cancelled.

The proportion of MOD exercises cancelled in the last five full financial years is in the following table