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Defence Procurement

I will not give way, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me. The battlefield multi-role helicopter, in the form of the future Lynx, is also critical. That aircraft has little in common with the current Lynx, but it is essential for the British Army. Are we going to have to await the outcome of the Minister's short equipment examination and when can we expect to hear news on that front? Time does not permit me to expand on all the Government's failures, so I shall concentrate on three themes. The first is the balance of forces. I am very conscious of the argument that we are spending vast sums of taxpayers' money on exceptionally high-tech kit to fight an asymmetric conventional war in Afghanistan—an argument that deserves to be addressed. We need to be aware that even close-quarter combat is today conducted in the full glare of international media coverage and that there is a belief that modern warfare is a kind of enhanced computer game in which only the baddies get zapped. Collateral damage or the death of innocent civilians is widely regarded as unacceptable. Only the use of sophisticated equipment such as the sniper pod, which is carried by the Harriers, enables the precise identification and targeting of individuals and buildings. That kit is expensive and that new equipment also needs relatively expensive defensive aid suites attached for force protection against an increasingly sophisticated enemy. But there is, as the House has considered today, an overriding imperative to provide better force protection against the enhanced threat from improvised explosive devices, which, as I forecast, have migrated to Afghanistan from Iraq. My hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) rightly pressed the case on when the Snatch Land Rovers are to be withdrawn and replaced by the new WIMIK. The Under-Secretary ought to tell the House something about when we can expect that vehicle, which has much more armour and an example of which I have seen, to be much more readily available to forces in theatre. I accept everything that the Minister for the Armed Forces said about the Mastiff and it not being suitable for every role. My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) will deal further with the issue of force protection in his winding-up speech, but the one thing that we have to be clear about is the fact that we cannot provide 100 per cent. protection for our armed forces in the field, and there would be no point in our deceiving the British people that we can so do. Secondly, I want to discuss the procurement process and the role of industry. Although I have been highly critical of the Government's overall procurement strategy, I am happy to join the Minister in acknowledging the fact that the urgent operational requirement programme has resulted in improvements in body armour; the off-the-shelf purchase of Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, renamed Reaper by the Royal Air Force; and provision of armoured vehicles such as the Mastiff.