The Home Office keeps the UK\u2019s preparedness for terrorist attack under constant review, and is delivering a £144 million programme to increase numbers of armed police officers in the UK. The first phase of the armed uplift is complete, with an additional 41 Armed Response Vehicles and around 650 armed officers. The next phase - an increase in Counter-Terrorism Specialist Firearms Officers - is expected to complete in 2018, with a proportion to be based in Manchester.<\/p>
The Home Office also trains and equips specialist fire and ambulance teams to manage casualties in higher risk environments. These capabilities are deployable to a terrorist incident occurring anywhere in the UK, including in Greater Manchester. The emergency services\u2019 response to the recent terrorist attack in Manchester was fast and effective, with at least six armed response vehicles arriving at the incident within ten minutes.<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/1539", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Mr Ben Wallace"} } , "answeringMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Wyre and Preston North"} , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Mr Ben Wallace"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2017-07-12", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2017-07-12T16:41:26.41Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "Home Office"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "Home Office"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2017-07-04", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "hansardHeading" : {"_value" : "Greater Manchester Police"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25259", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Commons"} } ], "questionText" : "To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment the Government has made of the capacity of Greater Manchester Police to handle multiple large-scale terrorist attacks simultaneously.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/1506", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Andrew Gwynne"} } , "tablingMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Denton and Reddish"} , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "Andrew Gwynne"} ], "uin" : "2723"} ], "itemsPerPage" : 10, "page" : 0, "startIndex" : 1, "totalResults" : 1, "type" : ["http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#ListEndpoint", "http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#Page"]} }