Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what overseas training is planned for reserve forces in 2014; and where that training will take place. [182083]

Mr Francois, Minister of State for the Armed Forces: As part of the new offer to Reservists, we have increased the number of overseas training opportunities. This information is held according to the training year (April to March) rather than by calendar year. For the training year 2014-15 overseas training exercises focussed on Reserved Forces are planned to take place as listed:

Maritime Reserve (Royal Navy Reserve and Royal Marine Reserve)

Cyprus—1

Gibraltar—1

Norway—1

United States of America—1

Army Reserve

Belize—3

Croatia—1

Cyprus—10

Denmark—3

Falkland Islands—3

Germany—3

Gibraltar—1

Italy—2

Kenya—6

Spain—2

United States of America—1

Royal Auxiliary Air Force

Cyprus—2

Denmark—1

Germany—1

Norway—2

United States of America—1

Additionally, other small groups or individual reservists may participate in overseas exercises alongside Regular forces, but information regarding such deployments is not held centrally.

In the White Paper, “Reserves in the Future Force 2020: Valuable and Valued” (CM 8655) published in July 2013, we made a commitment routinely to inform employers of their employees' training commitment three months before the start of the training year in April; this is under way for the forthcoming training year, and will include notification of these overseas exercises.

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