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Armed Forces Personnel

My hon. Friend is a persistent and, on occasion, imaginative advocate for his constituents who work in the Clyde shipyards. He is equalled in his capacity to raise these issues in any circumstances only by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson). They share an important business, representing people on either side of the Clyde, and they know that those yards have recently enjoyed a particularly purple period in terms of the placing of Government orders. For those who do not know what the MARS project is about, I should say that it is designed to provide the floating logistical support for the Royal Navy—what used to be known as the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service; it aims to replace those ageing ships. There are several elements to it, one of which, the tanker element, has been advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union. No decision has yet been made as to where the order will be placed, and no decisions have been made about the other elements of the process. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson) recognises in the Government's actions—and, indeed, in their words—our commitment to maintaining a sustainable shipbuilding capacity well into the future, for the good reason that we are making significant investment in the Royal Navy. We want to ensure that we maintain the skills in this country to be able to continue to make that investment and to make the best of that substantial investment once we have made it and these ships are afloat. He can rest assured that his constituents on the Clyde can look forward to many decades of work delivering orders that will be placed by the Government. An underlying allegation has been made from numerous quarters that deep down the Government do not really care about the men and women in the British armed forces, that the covenant between the Government and the armed forces is broken and that we are sending people into harm's way without due care and support. That is wholly wrong and false, because we do care and we deliver—we will continue to deliver. We are demonstrating our gratitude and the nation's gratitude, and we are fulfilling our duty properly to support the men and women of the armed forces in return for their self-sacrifice and hard work. They carry out the work on behalf of this nation, and it makes this nation, and the nations of Iraq and Afghanistan—and indeed the world—a safer and more stable place.