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Defence Procurement

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information, which I did not know. I am sure that the whole House will also be grateful to him and that the Under-Secretary will want to respond to that information in his winding-up speech. The Minister referred to further helicopter capability, and we indeed have another six Merlins, which we have acquired from Denmark, but which will not enter service until they have been modified for current operations. However, those programmes are essentially one-offs with, as I understand it, little in the way of planned through-life support. I understand that the Danish Merlins, unlike the ones ordered by the UK, carry the traffic alert and collision avoidance system—TCAS—together with weather radar, but they will not be maintained once they become unserviceable. TCAS would prevent the loss of life in mid-air collisions and I find it hard not to have contempt for a deliberate decision to refuse to maintain a life-saving piece of equipment. As a result of acquiring one-off pieces of equipment such as those I have mentioned, we find that there is no consistency across the fleet, with a multitude of variants having to be maintained, all of which adds to the cost. There seems to be agreement between us that there needs to be a fundamental review of the procurement process so that we develop an ability to respond much more swiftly to the rapidly shifting nature of the threat while being able to fit the new equipment into a coherent overall core programme. I accept that that is no easy task, but it must be undertaken. The Treasury needs to be part of the process so that it can understand why its agreement to fund the simple acquisition of a UOR should not be the end of its responsibility. I note that the Defence Committee has again expressed concern about the skills available to the MOD so that it is able to monitor procurement projects. The Ministry needs to ensure that project development personnel with experience of controlling major projects are brought in from the private sector so that the MOD has the benefit of serious commercial knowledge that enables the customer to be an informed one and not be taken for a ride by industry. Alongside such savvy commercial people, I accept that we need military personnel with current knowledge of the kit in question. Under proposals made by Lord Drayson in the defence industrial strategy, British industry, which plays such an important role in supporting our armed forces, had some idea of where the Government were going. The Minister is correct: today, it is extremely unhappy and has no sense of direction. Lord Drayson's strategy is clearly set out in paragraph A1.16 of the defence industrial strategy:"““Promoting an overall business environment which is attractive to defence companies and investors… identifying key industrial capabilities which are important to Defence to retain in the UK industrial base to maintain appropriate sovereignty, with sustainment strategies where these seem at risk.””" We agree with that assessment. The Astute submarine programme ran into trouble in part because of skill fade—the loss of key skills to build the boats—and it is essential that we do not allow that situation to prevail. Equally, we need to maintain investment in defence research. The defence technology strategy acknowledged as much when it said that today's battle-wining kit is the result of yesterday's investment. A programme of technology demonstrators may be one way of ensuring that we keep feeding the research base. It is important to preserve Britain's world-class research base not only for the benefit of our own forces but so that we have something to bring to the party with the US. The moment when we cease to be such a contributor, we shall become a supplicant, and that would dramatically alter the relationship. I know that the right hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon), the former Secretary of State who is now the Government Chief Whip, felt that ownership of Britain's defence industry to be of little consequence. Since he made that assertion some four years ago, however, two of our major enterprises—BAE Systems and QinetiQ, both of which happen to have their headquarters in my constituency—have been developing faster in the US than in the UK. At the same time, many of our smaller companies are being acquired by overseas interests, such as Thales from France and Finmeccanica from Italy. There is clearly an element of the inevitable about that, thanks to globalisation, but if we want to maintain a vibrant defence industry in the UK, we must ensure that investors can see an income stream.