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Defence Procurement

I begin with an apology, or rather an explanation, to those on the Opposition Front Bench. It was no discourtesy that I was absent during the Opposition's opening speech, but defence debates often take place on days when the Select Committee on Defence has commitments. The hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) and I were attending a meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Bridget Prentice) to consider an issue that strikes a particularly important chord with all Members who represent defence constituencies: the arrangements for coroners' courts and inquests following the repatriation of bodies from theatres abroad. I congratulate the hon. Member for Salisbury, who may well speak about such matters a little later in the debate—I will leave that to him—on his diligent campaign to bring these matters to the attention of the appropriate Ministers. When I last spoke in a defence debate, at the end of April, I concluded by saying that I looked forward to some important procurement matters moving forward in the months ahead, and indeed they have. I make no apology for concentrating on local issues, where we are experiencing a very fast pace of change. Locally, the MOD has agreed to Babcock's purchase of DML, which operates our local dockyard, and it has been cleared by the Competition Commission. The terms of business agreements are being cleared: the dotting of the i's and crossing of the t's on the important contract arrangements for the nuclear facility and the Trident contract—an important part of which we operate at Devonport—as well as major contracts to refurbish the Vanguard class submarines. The new owner has been broadly, if somewhat cautiously—as is our way in Plymouth—welcomed. A British company is involved, rather than the rather distant American ownership that we previously experienced. Babcock has formed Babcock Marine, the headquarters of which will be based in Plymouth. We look forward to working with the company, and we hope that, having acquired the significant additional base of Devonport, it will be able to use the new arrangements as a springboard to become a major marine defence company in the United Kingdom. The dockyard and the naval base activities are closely linked, and we were very pleased with the outcome of the review, which found a role for all three bases. The Minister and members of the Defence Committee are certainly familiar with the peaks and troughs of submarine maintenance work in Plymouth. The investment of £150 million in the nuclear infrastructure to meet, quite rightly, the ever more stringent safety case and to enable those involved to undertake decommissioning work on the older classes of submarine was also very welcome and certainly answered some of the great concerns that we have expressed over recent years. Nevertheless, there will still be some challenges for the new company. The base porting of ships at Devonport remains a very important issue, on which we hope to get some clarification in the near future. If there is one issue on which the Minister's clarification would be appreciated, it is that there will be no further haemorrhaging of Devonport's role as a base port for ships in service. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces visited Plymouth last week. From discussions that I and the other Plymouth MPs—my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck) and the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter)—had with him, I know that he is familiar with those arguments and, indeed, will meet all three of us again tomorrow to continue the discussion. From his participation in the Thursday war, I am sure that he will have seen for himself that there is far less congestion in Plymouth than there is in the busy Portsmouth facilities. Nevertheless, we have the capacity to offer significant savings to the naval base review budget, especially through the innovative land release model that is under discussion. In his statement on the naval base review, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence told the hon. Member for South-West Devon that there would be no further salami slicing of naval base activities and issues. As chair of the strategy group that has been looking at the work load issues, the change in ownership and the naval base review since December 2005, I want to tell my hon. Friend the Minister how important we consider it to be to conclude the work that we began during the naval base review and to state clearly the comparative socio-economic impacts of a reduction in activities at the different naval bases on the savings that will need to be made. Before leaving local issues, I want to mention two matters to do with filling those important troughs and helping us to maintain the skills base at Devonport. First, the recent £30 million work package for HMS Ocean is certainly welcome, although of course we look forward to more of the allocated non-competitive work load coming our way. We have also become used to filling those troughs with luxury yacht work. I think that a keel was laid at Appledore in north Devon only yesterday morning—something that will be very welcome to the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey)—and rail rolling stock is also being refurbished. We were all a little taken aback in Plymouth recently by the £30 million contract to build new military vehicles, which my right hon. Friend the Minister mentioned in his opening speech. That will take a little bit of getting used to in Plymouth, which has been so strongly identified as a naval port for many years, but we hope that it heralds further contracts coming Devonport's way from that very big—I think that it is worth £16 billion—programme of FRES vehicles, albeit perhaps not all of it. That would be a little greedy, but if we can perform with the skill for which the Devonport work force are so well known and deliver value for money, on time and to the right quality, Plymouth might well become known for that in future years—as well as for its very strong association with naval matters. In the last defence debate, I spoke about increased investment in Defence Estates and single living accommodation, including Project Armada in Devonport, and improvements to service family properties. Since then, the Defence Committee has produced a report on the issue, and as part of our ongoing work we will look closely at the Government's response to the serious issues about the pace of change that we raised in our report. The investment announced in the Chancellor's statement earlier today is very welcome, but it is clear from our report that change and investment are greatly needed if we are to achieve the standard of accommodation that we would wish for all our service families within the foreseeable future. A number of hon. Members mentioned helicopters. The new Merlins were mentioned in a recent press report, and we were told earlier this year that they would be available within a year. Lord Drayson visited those involved with the helicopters, which we hope will soon be available. As other hon. Members said, we need to make much more progress on helicopters. I am sure that progress at strategic level will form a significant part of the Defence Committee's ongoing work in the current and forthcoming Sessions. We will consider the lessons of the urgent operational requirements, particularly in respect of the defence industrial strategy. The right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) expressed concern about whether the priorities were being configured correctly. I am not sure how welcome he would have found the remarks that the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, made in his speech to the Royal United Services Institute in September. The key points that he attempted to lay before us, which will no doubt preoccupy us as we approach the forthcoming defence industrial strategy, is that basic equipment procurement has suffered as the UK has focused on the acquisition of advanced technologies, and that, as we heard in the Minister's opening remarks, the urgent operational requirements process, on which we now spend £2 billion, has been instrumental in developing forces and their equipment. General Sir Richard Dannatt made some very strong points in that speech, which I commend to all Members who follow defence issues closely and who have not yet picked up on it. It is in the very good briefing that the Library produced for this debate. He would like us to spend more money on getting things right at the very lowest levels. He talked at considerable length about the great improvements that have been made, and not only in respect of the Mastiff vehicles. He particularly referred to the role of dismounted close-combat units. He compared the infantry unit of two years ago to one of today, and said that people"““would be surprised at the difference between personal equipment, weapons vehicles and overall capability””." We must be careful, in our comments about deficiencies—which, no doubt, are there—to bear it in mind that things are changing very fast, particularly with the significant investment that is being made in urgent operational requirements in response to what people on the ground find necessary. We are experiencing continuous change in the culture of researching and developing new equipment, but there are also ongoing, major procurement changes to the partnership between industry and Government. The Select Committee will shortly return to consider the progress that has been made since the first defence industrial strategy, which of our recommendations have been taken up, the need to invest substantially in research and development if we are to keep ahead and are to be in the right place in 20 years' time, and the issue of the small and medium-sized enterprises that the hon. Member for North Devon mentioned. I notice that Christianne Tipping of the Royal United Services Institute, who comments on such matters, says that she is unsure whether that issue is being followed up in the way that we on the Defence Committee would expect, and that the second defence industrial strategy might well suggest that that role needs to be formalised. To conclude, I should like to say how much we welcome the work that Lord Drayson has done, and to welcome, as others have, the fact that he is still in post. Decisions are still being made, not only about up-front acquisition costs but about through-life cost, and that is one of the most difficult areas of defence procurement to take on. It has been said that it will take a brave individual to follow that through to its conclusion, but I hope that we on the Defence Committee can support those who are trying to do that.