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Defence Procurement

I was about to deliver a eulogy on the Defence Committee, not only under my chairmanship but under that of the right hon. Gentleman. Its reports—including on defence equipment 2008 and on defence industrial strategy—are excellent and quite remarkable. My response to the right hon. Gentleman's question was to have been my conclusion, but I shall give it early: we have to determine the defence budget based not just on what money is available but on the need. If the need is high, the budget has to be increased. Too many historical examples should persuade any people in the Ministry of Defence who has read history—I am sure that many of them have—that to do otherwise is profoundly unwise, because when they find out that they have made a mistake they will have retired and the consequences for the political and bureaucratic classes are potentially devastating. We have lived through enough historic failures to convince people that history cannot be thrown aside on graduation. I strongly argue—I am not saying this just for the benefit of the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) or because of his intervention—that a lot has been done to enhance procurement. I will not go into the arguments about defence expenditure collapsing under the Tories or the enormous expenditure dedicated by this Government, but we have now reached the point in terms of personnel and equipment where it is inadequate to take the stance that is being taken. If equipment is inadequate, lives are lost and wars can be lost. The Government are doing a pretty good job, but we are getting close to the point where someone in office will have to rattle the Treasury's cage and say that the budget has fallen to such a level that if it continues to do so it will not just be undesirable but could have serious consequences. Going back to my pro-Government mode, I should say that what emerged from the SDR was quite remarkable. We have seen smart procurement, smart acquisition, integrated project teams and the creation of all sorts of things—resource accounting and budgeting, public-private partnerships, private finance initiatives and partnering. The list goes on and on. Then we see the developments coming out of the EU—I will not spend much time on them—or NATO. There is defence industrial policy, on which we produced an excellent report in 2002, and then there is defence industrial strategy. The list of initiatives is a long one. I have read the Defence Committee reports about new developments, stocktake, the Defence Procurement Agency forward teams and so on—there has been so much activity. However, I would want to see more evidence that endeavour, activity, research and so on had brought us close to solving the problems that have so far eluded Governments. Jeremy Blackham, whom most of us know well, wrote an article for the Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI, about what he called the ““wicked problems””—the almost insoluble problems that face all Governments. I fear that we have an enormous task to do before we achieve the equipment that we require.