Julian Lewis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julian Lewis on 2016-01-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent assessment he has made of the advantages of (a) expertise, (b) experience and (c) continuity in the use of specialist MOD civilian police in guarding sensitive military establishments.

Michael Fallon

In 2013 the Ministry of Defence (MOD) completed a review of its civil policing and guarding policy and requirements to ensure that these reflect the main security and crime risks faced by the Department, and were being met as cost effectively as possible by the MOD Police, the Military Provost Guard Service and the MOD Guard Service.

The review recognised the very important role that the MOD Police played in support of security of the defence estate, but concluded that there was scope to make reductions to the number of guarding and civil policing posts at some sites, whilst maintaining effective and proportionate security at all of our sites. Overall the changes represented an improvement in security risk management; however, the safety of our personnel, assets and information continues to be our priority and our security arrangements are kept under review to meet these requirements.