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Defence Industrial Strategy

Yes, indeed. My right hon. Friend will have noted that yesterday’s carrier announcement referred not just to Portsmouth and Vosper Thorneycroft, but to Barrow-in-Furness and to Govan, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson). There was a genuine geographical spread among the beneficiaries. Yes, I do pay tribute to the work force and its adaptability, flexibility and willingness to change right across the defence industry. What the document means, I can tell my right hon. Friend, is that we are offering a degree of transparency, information and forward thinking that should give those people a greater degree of stability and security in managing change in a fast-changing world. The trade unions—including John Wall of Amicus and various others—were involved, through the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions. I have written today to those MPs—in all parts of the House—with a particular interest in these sectors, saying that I or the noble Lord Drayson will meet them. My right hon. Friend also asked what we, probably the most open defence procurers in Europe, are doing to encourage others to follow suit. We are doing three things, the first of which is to illustrate, through the success of our defence industries, that watching the minutes sometimes loses the hours, and that, through a degree of openness and competitiveness, we can develop a healthy industry. Secondly, during our presidency of the European Union we have encouraged our European colleagues to open up a little. Through the European Defence Agency, we have just signed a code of conduct that, although voluntary at this stage, moves matters in the right direction. Thirdly, we are maintaining dialogue with, and pressure on, our friends in the United States Administration—the President, Secretary Rumsfeld and others—with some degree of success. This is proving less successful on the Hill, and we must continue to work on that.