Civil Contingency Reaction Forces

Bob Russell
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Civil Contingency Reaction Force; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Ingram
The Civil Contingency Reaction Forces have been fully operational since the end of January 2004, and continue to maintain their readiness through a rolling programme of training and exercises with the emergency services that test how they would work together in a crisis. They enhance the armed forces’ ability to support the civil police and other bodies, if requested, through their availability to deploy to assist at the scene of an incident or elsewhere, be it terrorist attack, accident or natural disaster.