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Strategic Defence Review (Green Paper)

The hon. Gentleman takes the view, which is not widely shared in the House, that we can simply buy cheaply and readily off the shelf from what is available on the market. There would be consequences for us in doing that. If we buy jets, helicopters or ships from abroad and lose the technological capability to produce such items ourselves, we will probably never be able to gain it again, and we will be sold what is effectively second-class equipment. That is the inevitable consequence. It may well be cheaper, but it will probably be second-class. That is why we have the defence industrial strategy, which decides where we can afford to go in the market, where we can afford to buy cheaply and where we need to maintain our own industrial capability onshore.