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Defence Jobs

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood—it takes us back to the good old days of the European Scrutiny Committee. It is a great pleasure also to follow my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright). Like him, I congratulate most heartily my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on landing this debate at a critical time. Time now is short and I shall be brief. I would like to mention three subjects. The first is RAF Shawbury, which is the jewel in the crown as far as Shropshire’s defence activity is concerned. It supports at least 1,500 jobs locally and injects £20 million into the local economy. It is immensely important locally, but it is also hugely important nationally and, potentially, internationally, as it is the seat of the defence helicopter flying school. My comments to the Minister are simple. Ten days ago, I went on a simulated flight in the Bell simulator round most of north Shropshire and then did exactly the same thing in a real helicopter to compare the difference. As I said, Shawbury is immensely important locally, but a small number of people living close to the airfield are aggravated by noise, and it was most interesting to learn that 30 per cent. of day flying can be done in a simulator and 70 per cent. has to be done for real but at night it is half and half. It was clear from that exercise that people had to do the real thing. When we came to land, for instance, in the simulator, I always thought that we were about 30 ft higher than we actually were according to the simulator, so it has to be done for real and I stress that Shawbury has enormous support locally. Many farmers are very co-operative and offer landing sites, but there are two other points to be made. First, a small number of people are very badly affected—the Slater family, for instance. I saw a predecessor of the Minister, who is now Lord Moonie, about that. At the time, there were discussions about insulation materials and there were NATO trials. Can the Minister tell us what new technologies are coming along? We welcome the helicopter training at Shawbury, but for a small number of people there is aggravation, although I take my hat off to the RAF authorities for the way in which they have liaised with parish councils and done their bit to mitigate complaints. However, the local question is: what is the form on new technologies coming along for low-frequency noise? The other question, which is of national consequence, given the demands particularly in Iraq and the extreme demands for helicopter pilots in Afghanistan, is: what steps are the Government taking to speed up the training of helicopter pilots? The Minister gave me a reply last week, saying that it took 87 weeks to train a Royal Navy pilot, 71 an Army pilot and 110 for a Royal Air Force pilot. When I went to Shawbury, I glibly said, ““Well, we used to stick Spitfire pilots in the air after 10 hours,”” but I was told, ““Yes, and a lot of them crashed.”” The people there insisted that it was extremely difficult to shorten the training. However, given the demands on our forces, particularly with the increasing role in Afghanistan, it seems that there will inevitably be a shortage of pilots, so can the Minister explain what steps the Government are taking to increase the number of pilots and what part Shawbury will play? Obviously, Shawbury will play a key role and will welcome that. Sadly, two soldiers from Tern Hill barracks in my constituency were recently killed in Iraq. They were killed by an explosive device hitting a Land Rover. I have asked the Minister questions on this issue and I understand that he is being cagey for operational reasons, but I understand that there are vehicles that will repel those explosive devices. Lord Drayson, in the other House, has stated that a vehicle called the Mamba was trialled in Bosnia and sold off because it was unreliable. I have read reports in the press, which I would like the Minister to verify, that actually the Mambas were sold to a private security firm and are now running down the most dangerous road in the world—the one between Baghdad airport and Baghdad town centre—carrying personnel of pretty high importance. I have also read a report that a Mamba has sustained two direct hits and all those in it got out alive. Therefore, can the Minister explain the Government’s position on putting our troops in extreme danger in soft-skin Land Rovers? To take another country, Canada yesterday cancelled a major element of its FRES—future rapid effects system—programme. We are planning to spend £14 billion on FRES. That is a very grandiose expensive scheme down the road. Canada has decided that its troops need help now—that for operational reasons they need improved equipment—and it is diverting some of its FRES money now into improved equipment for deployment in Afghanistan. We have Alvis in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin. Could—