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Defence Acquisition (Independent Review)

The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong on the issue of the report's handling. He cannot have his cake and eat it. I am not suggesting that the time was adequate, and I apologise to him and to the House for the fact that it was not, although it should have been, but he had the report for a lot more than an hour— ...He had the report for two hours—[Interruption.] I am not saying that that is long enough, so he does not need to gild the lily. He had the report for long enough for the Chairman of the Select Committee, his right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), to be able to say that there were changes to the report from the version that we had seen earlier, which was leaked to a newspaper. The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. Either the report was finished months ago and it should have been available to the House months ago, or changes were made, but he cannot have it both ways. The draft that was available in the summer was a draft and we have continued to work with Bernard Gray. The hon. Gentleman would have been the first to complain if I had put this report out during the recess, having missed the opportunity to put it out because we had not finished the work in the summer. I sought to put it in the public domain at the first opportunity after the House had returned. The hon. Gentleman referred to the defence procurement programme as a Santa's wish list, but why on earth does he not tell us what he thinks ought not to be in there? He is reluctant to tell us— ...Absolutely, but I am trying to cast a little light in his direction and to try to get a little bit of clarity. Again, he cannot have it both ways. If it is a Santa's wish list of unaffordable projects, he ought to be prepared to say what he thinks ought not to be in there if he wants to have any credit for the criticism that he is throwing at us. The hon. Gentleman tries to suggest that this is a damning report that says that the system is broken. Bernard Gray says the quite reverse. He says in terms that""this report dwells on areas where there are problems, not with the intention of saying that everything is broken or that the system as a whole is bad"." That is a direct quote from the Gray report. On the issue of whether the Department is as good as others, I am not going to try to say that the problems have been going on for decades, although I am certain that they have. What the report says, again in terms, is that all nations with advanced defence capabilities, and therefore acquisition processes, suffer from exactly the same difficulties. We know more than many countries, and indeed other countries look to our process as a beacon showing the way to reform. On the details of taking the programme forward, that is exactly what Lord Drayson is doing, and we will report in the new year to put flesh on the bones and explain exactly how we are going to take forward acquisition reform. The hon. Gentleman talked about the carrier, and he claimed that there was no good reason for a delay to the reprofiling of the carrier programme, but he knows that it was delayed to make way for a higher priority requirement—the Lynx Mk 9 helicopter, which is needed for current operations. These things will always happen. As things develop, and as military priorities emerge, from time to time, despite the fact that there is a cost involved—and I do not deny that there is a cost involved, which is why we commissioned the report—it makes sense to reprioritise, because other priorities become more important at a particular time.