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Defence Procurement

I fully support what is being done, because we need to balance the urgent operational requirements and the kit that we are now buying with the longer-term decisions. That is correct, but may I ask the Minister's civil servants—his Department—to hold their hands up for once and say that things have changed? I tabled a parliamentary question about where the Mastiff fits in the future rapid effect system programme, only to be told this week that it does not. I am sorry, but that answer absolutely contradicts what Lord Drayson and Brigadier Applegate told me and the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) last year, when they said that the Mastiff was now part of the FRES family of vehicles. I should have thought that that was the correct approach. May I ask the Minister's civil servants, when they draw up the plans, to come back to reality rather than to the old script, which has clearly been ditched?