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Welsh Affairs

It is an honour and a privilege to follow an Ely girl and to take part in our traditional Welsh affairs debate. It is close to St. David's day, the day of our patron saint, and a day when we should celebrate all that is Welsh and refer to our successes. We have heard some excellent speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the House. They tended to be general in their subject matter, but I would rather focus my comments on a great success for Wales that was alluded to by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan)—the military training academy that is coming to St. Athan. That is something that we can all celebrate: not only the people of south Wales but the people of the whole of Wales. If we get our act together and get this right, not only through the investment coming to us, but through taking advantage of this investment and marketing it to ensure that we maximise the benefits for the people of Wales, it will be a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us all. I want to set out briefly exactly where we are on the question of the academy. The Government made a welcome and excellent announcement on 31 January, in which they said that they were releasing contracts to allow the lion's share of package 1 of the defence training review to proceed on course and on time. At moments, I thought that the world had caved in because all the reports we had through the media suggested that something had gone wrong and that Wales had lost something. In fact, this country made a huge gain. Within the last 24 hours, I have heard comments in this Chamber suggesting that package 1, which represents two thirds of the entire transformation of defence training in this country—all the phase 2 and phase 3 technical training for the tri-service —would not come to St. Athan. Yesterday, in this Chamber, it was suggested that it would not. Let me tell the House that it definitely is. In the words of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, whom I am delighted to see back in the place where he belongs—although he is not there at the moment—package 1 is absolutely safe. The Metrix consortium won that bid in open competition, and it won it by a long way. For the record, it did not win the bid for that other section of this major transformation of British defence training, which is long overdue and welcome. It did not win package 2. It had been announced as the provisional bidder to be considered if it could put everything together and save huge amounts of money for the Government. However, it did not, so the announcement on 31 January was that the competition for the private finance initiative for package 2 had been withdrawn and closed. That does not mean that it is not coming to south Wales or that it is not coming to St. Athan. The transformation of the skills sets in that package is still going to take place; they will still be modernised, rationalised and relocated. If we get our act together on the investment to begin with, Wales is in a very strong position—pole position—to attract all, or a huge chunk, of the defence training programme.