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Defence Procurement

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), who always talks not only in a spirited way about his constituency industry interests but knowledgeably about the aerospace industry. I wish to mention the work of the Defence Committee. My right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) said that it works on a cross-party basis to try to get good value for money from the defence industry, and that is true under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot). Some of the time that I most enjoy in this place is spent in the Defence Committee. My right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South, also drew on his considerable experience to remind us in no uncertain terms that procurement and its failures are as old as warfare itself. He and other hon. Members said that we are perhaps not paying a high enough premium for the defence of this country, and I agree. I hope that we will be able to set out a strong case for that. I am not absolutely convinced of the need for a new strategic defence review. The Government have announced a review against the background of the security and resilience strategy, and the Defence Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry examining the implications of that strategy from the MOD perspective. That review may well come up with some answers more quickly and in a more focused way. I hope that it will provide the certainty that people are looking for on certain matters, but of course the history of the issue is strewn with a slightly different experience. Maybe I will turn out to have been over-optimistic. My right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South, said that Nostradamus had had some success in his predictions. That reminded me of Machiavelli, who advised republicans—not princes in this case—that to try to guide a flood when it came, they needed to build bridges and dams. In the same way, we need to be agile in procurement and build capabilities that can flex to fast-changing circumstances and the threats that we face. The Government's need to weave that into the procurement process is perhaps greater than ever before. It is certainly important that the Government get procurement right. There is always a tension between procurement and personnel in the defence budget, and money lost through overruns, delays and project difficulties is money that could have been spent on pay, accommodation, personnel and other improved kit. During the course of our inquiry we heard about major changes in the Defence Logistics Organisation and the Defence Procurement Agency, and about the transformation into Defence Equipment and Support. We need to exercise a considerable degree of caution about the speed of those changes, particularly given the reductions in personnel, although the savings from that may, in the end, be welcome. However, speed in change can sometimes result in cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. We will need to keep a close eye on that over the coming months. Before I move on to naval matters, as hon. Members would probably expect me to, let me say that we in Devonport are still trying to get our heads round the idea of becoming a base for the manufacture of vehicles for use by the Army and the Marines. I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to clarify a little the different types of vehicle that we are talking about and the roles that they play. There is a huge demand for the Supercat vehicles that are being manufactured in Devonport, and they are welcome when they arrive at their deployed destination. A year after Babcock took over responsibility for Devonport Management Ltd, which is no more—all the logos have been changed, and Devonport is now the UK base for Babcock Marine—and following the naval base review, there is a great deal of interest in Plymouth and Devonport in what the process means for our local industry and work force. I am looking forward to a meeting in early July, to which I will bring some of the community leaders from Plymouth to discuss with my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces what the changes may involve. Certain questions flow for Devonport from the fact that the joint venture has been formed and that the order for the future carriers can now be placed. HMS Ark Royal and HMS Illustrious are planned to leave service in 2012 and 2015 respectively. In the meantime, they will still require maintenance and docking, especially as they are getting older, as older vessels often need more attention. There is some interest in how that will pan out, as Devonport undertook refits and maintenance on the Invincible class in the 1980s and early 1990s. There will obviously be disappointment about what I am sure was a difficult decision to make on the Type 45s, if for no other reason than that HMS Daring has well exceeded expectations in her sea trials. The six Type 45 destroyers that have been ordered to replace the Type 42 destroyers will certainly be a great asset to the Royal Navy. I would like to know—if not today, then at some point—whether consideration is being given to extending the lives of the later Type 42 destroyers. Even without the Sea Dart, they could still be useful in undertaking some of the general purpose tasks, to which I will return when I talk about the numbers of frigates and destroyers, that were referred to earlier. Before that, let me mention in passing the Astute programme. As the Defence Committee has uncovered in so many of our inquiries, it is essential that sufficient orders are placed, in order to keep up the drumbeat and to keep up the skills base. That is as important to the future deterrent as it is to the current Astute programme, not only to ensure that the Navy receives the submarines that it requires, but to ensure that the skills necessary to build those submarines are not lost before work begins on the successor to Trident. I hope that the Under-Secretary will confirm that it is still the intention to order seven boats and tell us that he understands that confirming when orders for further units will be forthcoming would allow BAE Systems to plan with greater certainty and, potentially, keep the costs down. Much has been made of the numbers of frigates and destroyers being built but, as I set out in considerable detail in my Adjournment debate on 5 March, I believe that simply building greater numbers of ships is an over-simplistic answer. We need a wide, balanced and flexible range of capabilities. The Royal Navy's warships have always been multi-purpose. Destroyers protect carriers and amphibious ships from air attack, while frigates have the primary role of hunting submarines. Both have the secondary role of carrying out a range of medium to low-level tasks, from anti-piracy and counter-drugs operations to humanitarian missions and guard ship duties. We have always ensured that the ships are state of the art, in order to be effective in their primary roles. The Type 23 frigate, together with its Merlin helicopter, is the quietest and most effective anti-submarine frigate in the world. The Type 45 destroyer, with its Aster missiles and Samson radar, is also world class. However, this has had the effect of pushing up costs to the point at which it is no longer possible to build them in sufficient numbers to fulfil their secondary roles. The cost of a Type 45 is approximately £1 billion. It is therefore time for us to consider separating the two roles. A frigate undertaking humanitarian operations in the Caribbean during the hurricane season does not really need to carry anti-submarine weaponry. Nor does a destroyer intercepting pirates off west Africa really need the world's most advanced anti-aircraft missiles. Perhaps it is time for us to develop a small, flexible design for an escort—a light frigate that we can build in sufficient numbers to carry out that multitude of tasks. The future surface combatant has been mentioned, and I hope that the Minister will set out whether that is the direction that the future surface combatant will take us in, with a capability to be adapted by spiral insertion to meet what are by common consent the uncertain and changing threats and roles that we shall face in the future. In conclusion, I shall return to the point at which I started, and stress the importance of getting the underlying procurement process right. Our Defence Committee report was broadly positive about the direction of travel, although we certainly have concerns about the speed of change and about the generation and mix of skills. The aim must be not just to take out cost but to improve quality and speed of decision making, and I believe that the Chair of the Select Committee was absolutely right to sound a note of caution. The coming months promise to bring plenty to keep our Committee busy on the procurement front, and I look forward to the discussions that I shall shortly have with community leaders about the prospects for Devonport's continuing important role in supporting the Royal Navy and our vital deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.