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Defence Procurement

I should like to associate my comments with those of other right hon. and hon. Members about the brave members of our armed forces who have sacrificed their lives in operational theatres such as Iraq and Afghanistan. That was brought home to me only too graphically when an officer whom I got to know completed his tour of duty in Iraq and within a few months was having to tell his family that this year there would be no summer holiday with him present because he had to go back to Iraq. That brings home in human terms exactly what tours of duty really mean, particularly for those who are left behind in this country. Equally, none of the equipment programmes that we have discussed could occur were it not for the skilled personnel of the defence companies of this country. I think particularly of the BAe Systems work force at Warton in my constituency—the engineers, software developers and so forth. Without the human dimension, none of these systems would be possible. I am struck by one of the overriding themes of the debate, which was built on by the comments of the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Crausby) about the British contribution. I am a great believer in what the United Kingdom's defence industrial base can do, either singularly or working in concert with our partners in Europe, to ensure that we maintain a capability over which we have some degree of control. That was recently brought home to me when I read in the newspapers of the possible removal of senior air force personnel in the United States after its new Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, questioned some of the blunders that had been made. In the same article, questions were raised about the future of American programmes such as the F22—a highly complex, very expensive fighter that had attracted the attention of the Japanese in meeting their own air defence requirement. If that programme were to be sacrificed, the overtures that BAe Systems has been making to the Japanese about a possible purchase of the Eurofighter Typhoon would have much better prospects. Unless we can keep such programmes going, export opportunities such as that to Japan, or possibly even, in the long term, to India, will not arise. I could not support the idea that in future we should simply sacrifice our defence procurement requirements to whatever comes off the shelf from somebody else; that is not tenable. The example of the possible export of the Eurofighter illustrates why we must have control over those capabilities.