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Defence Industry (Lancashire)

I will not give way, because I am coming to the end of my time. That would have been a risky operation. I have to tell the hon. Member for Aldershot that the arrangement that we have with the Americans is one that we will most certainly have in the intermediate period, starting rapidly, I trust, with full access to all the data. Subsequently, we will have British crew on those aircraft from the beginning, and when we take over those aircraft ourselves, we will deliver the data ourselves and pass it on to the Americans, as we do at the moment. We will determine the mission programme entirely—no doubt, after listening to any suggestions from our allies—and pass on the output, as we do currently. The difference is that we will have a much more capable mission system than we have at present. The hon. Member for Aldershot rightly said that I should not go into more details than that, and I will not, but I am happy to say that that new mission system will be a great deal more capable. The hon. Member for Cheadle said that we did not have enough UAVs, which I though was an extraordinary comment, as we ordered some more Reapers—I cannot say how many we have in theatre—in December, if I recall correctly, so we are increasing the number of UAVs that we have in theatre. We are expecting Watchkeeper to come into service within the next year, and that, as a core programme, is a major investment. I have no idea where he got the idea that we are not investing in UAVs and are simply waiting for Taranis and Mantis. That was another ill-informed comment.