Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what progress has been made on the deployability of the Main Battle Tank throughout Europe.

Mark Lancaster, Minister of State for the Armed Forces:  The British Army maintains the ability to deploy its Challenger 2 main battle tanks throughout Europe, with a number currently deployed in Estonia as part of NATO's enhanced Forward Presence. This is assisted by the Government's announcement last year that a residual Army presence in Germany will be maintained as a foundation on which to enhance readiness on mainland Europe; a number of main battle tanks are already forward based there. Defence is continuing to examine how we might forward deploy Army capability in the future but no conclusions have been reached.

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