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Defence Procurement

I should like to put on record my tribute and thanks to the brave men and women of our armed forces who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in other places around the world. They do an excellent job and we are all rightly proud of what they do. The future rapid effect system—FRES—has been mentioned today. My constituents who work at BAE Land Systems, and those who work at associated engineering companies in my constituency and in wider Shropshire, were disappointed by the decision on Piranha 5 and General Dynamics, which preferred the VBCI vehicle, but we have moved on from our disappointment and hope that the Ministry of Defence will now look closely at the excellent work force at BAE Land Systems and in Shropshire generally, and that it will consider my constituency for the vehicle integrator programme. The Minister will know, having visited my constituency, that Shropshire has a long and proud history of serving Her Majesty's armed forces—those in uniform and civilians—and that there is a wide, sound industrial base in the county and across the west midlands. I also pay tribute to the Defence Support Group and to all those who work in the Army Base Repair Organisation and the former Defence Logistics Organisation, which has now been re-branded. Nevertheless, the demand for logistics and the supply of urgent operational requirements continues and the work force in my constituency and the county of Shropshire more widely continue to be called on to deliver UORs, often at very short notice, to Afghanistan and Iraq, yet they deliver time and time again. I hope that the Minister will pay tribute to them on the record in his concluding remarks. I hope that the Minister will also take the opportunity to ensure that the Army Base Repair Organisation has a long-term future. Some months ago—perhaps over a year ago—there was a question mark over it, but after the excellent report of the Defence Select Committee, the Government rightly recognised that the attrition on armed vehicles in Afghanistan and Iraq and the greater wear and tear on them would mean further repairs. After the Defence Select Committee review, as well as a review by the MOD, Ministers took the right decision and said that ABRO should not be downsized or relocated, but extended and called for further recruitment to it. I pay tribute to ABRO's work. Having briefly visited Iraq with the armed forces parliamentary scheme—indeed, I also visited Afghanistan just some weeks ago—I can pay personal tribute to ABRO on its excellent work. Certainly, the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Yorkshire Regiment pay tribute to its excellent work in getting damaged vehicles and those broken down back to the front line. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (John Smith), sadly no longer in his place, alluded to issues about defence training, the defence training review and the defence training rationalisation programme. I am not trying to hark back to the past, as clearly a decision has been made for the programme to go to RAF St. Athan, but the Minister needs to come clean not just with the people of Shropshire and the west midlands, but with the people of Wales. Some real issues remain about the delivery of the programme, particularly on the lack of infrastructure in Wales and the squabbling between the Welsh Assembly, the Ministry of Defence and local authorities. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan himself made some comments about that. He did not go into too much detail, but there were enough hints of concern in his speech to suggest that the defence training review programme might well be delayed. If that happens, it will be bad not only for Wales, but for Her Majesty's armed forces. I hope that the Minister will look again at the county of Shropshire, where we already have the infrastructure and the right people in place and where we have the experience necessary to continue to deliver the sort of defence training that Her Majesty's armed forces quite rightly expect and deserve. One key issue that the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan did not mention is the fact that training can be delivered only if there are trainers to deliver it. Local surveys carried out in my constituency by the Public and Commercial Services Union—a mostly excellent union in much, not all, of what it does—revealed that the majority of experienced, hard-working, dedicated and loyal MOD trainers were for many reasons unable or unwilling to move to Wales. The differential in house prices was one of the key reasons, as house prices around St. Athan are about 25 or 30 per cent. higher than in some of the Shropshire locations. That is a real issue. The Government might find themselves with a training establishment—the building and roads might eventually be built—but the Minister might find that there are no trainers to deliver the training. That is a strategic issue about the procurement of defence training, which will obviously impact on the British armed forces as a whole. In my final minute—I have other things to say, but I am aware that time is running out for other Members who want to contribute to the debate—let me deal with the issue of hypermass technology. In the debate on Trident, I mentioned that the defence industrial strategy made no reference to such technology. The Government need to look at that. While I support nuclear, there are instances in which weapons of overwhelming force might need to be used when we could not use a nuclear weapon. We have only conventional missiles. We need something between a conventional missile and a nuclear missile so that we have more flexible options when dealing with increased threat. On unmanned aerial vehicles, while I completely agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), it is right that we should have as much capability as we can within the UK. Without going into geographical detail, my concern is that in parts of theatre where UAVs are being used, it is not necessarily always British hands that are involved in every application of the UAV mission. That could raise conflict of interest issues. On cyber defence and the defence industrial strategy, we know that although China is a great nation in many ways and that it has a fine people, its Administration have perhaps not covered themselves in glory on human rights and a range of issues. We know from the head of our own Security Service that China is very interested in our military secrets. Even in the House, we have been told about cyber attacks from outside, potentially from China. I hope that the defence industrial strategy will carefully consider developing a British capability not only for cyber defence, but for cyber offence, because as military equipment becomes more reliant on integrated systems, fly by wire, special forces and aircraft such as the Typhoon, having the defence systems to protect ourselves from cyber attack will be critical and we must also have the capability to go on the offensive should we choose to do so.