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Defence Procurement

Do you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker? I am wholly aware of that fact. I am also aware that the hon. Gentleman’s newly adopted party has been in government for 12 years now, and it is about time that it took responsibility for sorting things out. [Interruption.] The Minister says that the Government have sorted them out, but they have not. Where are those helicopters? They are not in Helmand today, where the armed forces need them. Why not? Because the Government did not know what to do—they left those helicopters languishing in a hangar while they decided what to do about them, so I will not take any lessons from him about actions that were taken 12 years ago. Let me turn to another project for which the Minister would perhaps like to blame somebody else: the defence information infrastructure programme, which is designed to upgrade the network of all computers around the defence estate. The Public Accounts Committee says that it was "badly planned" and is running 18 months behind schedule and £182 million over budget. Then there is the Red Dragon project, in St. Athan in south Wales, which has proved to be another fiasco.