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Public Accounts

I do not believe that protectionist procurement necessarily leads to that result. All the evidence that we have received over a period in relation to urgent operational requirement contracting suggests that British defence industries can respond speedily in providing equipment when it is needed urgently by our forces in the front line, and when that has not been possible, the Government have always been perfectly willing to go abroad to pursue the very point that the hon. Gentleman has raised. Let me give an example relating to ships, in which my constituency has an interest. I have no doubt that we would have been able to buy some of the ships that we have more cheaply had we bought them abroad, but that would have destroyed our capacity to purchase them in the United Kingdom in the future. There is always a balance to be struck between savings now and retaining capacity for the future, which is what the defence industrial strategy is all about—but I am happy to let the hon. Gentleman dig himself further into a hole.