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Defence Procurement

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as I am sure the House will be, for making that point. I warmly endorse everything that he has said. Indeed, that is one reason why we have to maintain an integral British defence industrial base, without which we would not have access to that kind of spirited national effort in times of conflict. The Defence Export Services Organisation, which delivered huge benefits to the United Kingdom, was scrapped at the behest of an ennobled Treasury official, possibly in cahoots with the Campaign Against Arms Trade. The second instalment of the defence industrial strategy has been lost in the Department, if not on one of South West Trains. I could go on, but I will not, because time is limited. It is little wonder that the one man with a grasp of the issues and the ability to make decisions, Lord Drayson, threw in the towel at the end of last year to go motor racing, leaving the defence industry with no clear vision of the Government's strategy. The recent equipment planning round for 2008—EP08—has proved so unsatisfactory that the Government have invented a stalling device that they have called an equipment examination, which is set to take three months. The House will be interested to know what the Minister has said this afternoon. Apparently, it is to be a short examination designed to look at a 10-year requirement. The Minister needs to make up his mind whether this has been designed to provide a reflective peace in order to wrestle with some of the longer-term issues to which I have already referred, or, as we all suspect, it is a stalling device designed to get the Government through planning round '08 or '09. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire was absolutely right to say that we have no idea whether PR08 has been concluded or not—[Interruption.] The Minister says that he has just told us. Perhaps he will tell us when that short examination is going to report to the House. I will give way to him if he would like to put that on record now—[Interruption.] For the benefit of my right hon. and hon. Friends, he says it will be in a few months.