---

Strategic Defence and Security Review

I congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on taking the Chair. I also congratulate those Members who made their maiden speeches—I almost said ““nervous speeches””; I was certainly nervous when I made my maiden speech, but they were not. To talk in military terms, they will be pleased to have got off the runway, and I am sure that they will sail high in the future. If Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything, it is that the challenge is not winning the initial conflict, but securing the peace. Our opponents in both conflicts learned that standing and fighting in the open ended in their defeat, but that if they used the terrain, whether in the countryside or in towns and cities, and used hit-and-run tactics and improvised explosive devices, they could fight us effectively, and that insurgency would spread from province to province and—what we fear most—from country to country. To counter that, we have recognised the need for more mobile forces than we have had in the past—forces that can respond rapidly to ever changing situations. At the heart of meeting that challenge is the availability of more troops and equipment to be put down, often under fire, in difficult situations. Helicopters are only part of the answer to that, and we need large-scale strategic lift to support our forces engaged in ground operations. Our forces are still reliant on the ageing Hercules, which have been excellent workhorses over many years but are now showing their age. It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep them serviceable for the number of hours that our forces require. Although the C-130J has good tactical performance, it cannot carry outsize loads because its cargo hold is too small. The C-17, which seems to be the transport plane of choice, is a good outsize-load airlifter, but is costly and has limited tactical capability. It is fine if it can land on a proper airfield, but it cannot be used or operated from soft fields—or at least, as someone once advised me, it can land on soft fields, but only once. Not only is our use of leased aircraft expensive, but often they are not available at the time required, and many of the aircraft share the same problems as the C-17. The decision of the Labour Government—I thank my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench for this—to commit themselves, confirm and sign up to the Airbus 400M programme was extremely welcome. Derided by its opponents as a paper aircraft that would never take to the air, it has now flown, and by all accounts performed extremely well in its trials. The A400M will be able to carry either the same payload as the stretch C-130J more than twice as far, or double the payload over the same distance. It will be able to operate at high altitude and at high speed and respond to a greater range of mission requirements. Probably most importantly, it can operate from soft and rough fields, and can therefore deliver support to forward positions where it is most needed. To do that, it has advanced protection systems, which compare favourably to the airlifters currently in use. It will be able to carry helicopters and armoured vehicles and—we are currently unable to do this—deliver them directly to where they are needed. Furthermore, the aircraft will be cost-effective, which we can rarely say about military projects. Compared with the C-130J and C-17 fleets, it will have the highest availability and the lowest life cycle costs. It has been designed and built to meet operational requirements, rather than being modified or shoehorned to meet the task required of it. The export potential of the aircraft is also positive: its rivals are either ageing or unable to meet the full operational requirements; no new aircraft, either in development or on the drawing board, can rival the A400M. It could sell well around the world, and even in the US, although our experience with AirTanker would lead us to believe that the Americans would try to gerrymander any situation to the advantage of Boeing. Our American allies think that it is fine for them to have open access to our markets, but that we should be prevented from competing in theirs. However, that is an argument for another day. There are those who have always been opposed to UK involvement in the A400M programme, believing instead that we should just buy something off the shelf. The current Secretary of State for Defence has said that on several occasions. Underlying that is the Conservatives' opposition to European co-operation: they really dislike that aspect of the project. That attitude makes no sense on a number of fronts. It makes us totally reliant on the US—we would have no access to the intellectual property—and undermines the UK aerospace industry. It has a direct impact on jobs not only in the military sector but in the civil sector. For Airbus in the UK, the stakes are even higher: the A400M will be the first aircraft to be built with composite wings. In this country we have long prided ourselves in being at the centre of wing excellence, but that will be at risk if we do not take part in the project. Given how Airbus operates, if we pull out of the project the work share would be divided between the remaining partners, and Spain has long made it clear that it would get the chequebook out and be more than willing to take on that work. That would have a direct impact within the civil programme. Rather than our being the natural builder of the wings for future Airbus aircraft—in particular, the replacement for the A3320—we would find ourselves competing with Spain. If we lost that order, the future of Airbus in the United Kingdom could be at stake. I plead with the Secretary of State and the Minister to think of the future, not just in terms of a military project but in terms of the effect on the whole of the UK aerospace industry, including both direct and indirect employment. The last Government signed up to this project, which has ramifications far wider than military use. I appeal to the present Government to sign up to the project and ensure that it goes ahead, for the future of the United Kingdom.