Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 17th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

15. What recent progress his Department has made on its response to the internal radiation leak aboard HMS Vanguard; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)]

Let me make it clear to the hon. Lady that there has been no issue with the reactor on HMS Vanguard or, indeed, any of our submarines. I announced to the House on 6 March that there had been a small fuel element breach in the naval test reactor at Dounreay, but that did not lead to a leak of radiation from the reactor circuit.

[Katy Clark]

I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. What assessment has he made of whether the reactors on all Vanguard and Astute-class submarines will last the full lifetime of the submarines?

[Mr Hammond]

As I explained to the House when I made my statement, the purpose of the naval test reactor at Dounreay is to run the reactor hard and flat out, as it were, ahead of the operational reactors on the submarines, to see what happens as they approach the end of their planned life. The reactors on board our submarines have nothing like the percentage fuel burn that the reactor at Dounreay has now experienced, so we are looking at something that has developed at a much further advanced stage of the life of the reactor. We have, however, taken the decision, on a precautionary basis, to refuel HMS Vanguard during her planned deep-maintenance period. Once the reactor at Dounreay is decommissioned, it will be examined in detail and we will then have much greater evidence of what has caused the issue and be able to make sensible decisions about the future.

Aircraft Carriers and UK Shipbuilding

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

No decision has yet been made about the location of the base port for the vessels I have announced today. Just to be clear, what this announcement will do is effectively suspend the TOBA for the duration of the period when the OPVs are being built and then see its final demise upon the placing of the order for Type 26 global combat ships. I hope we have seen the very last TOBA payment being made to the industry by the MOD.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

Politics is about choices, of course. What impact has the funding of the Trident replacement had on the decisions that have led to the announcements of job losses today?

[Mr Hammond]

None. The Trident programme is a capital programme. The constraining factor in terms of the Royal Navy is far more around operating costs and crewing than the capital costs of platforms. We have to make sure we have a Navy that is sustainable and that we can afford to operate and crew in an increasingly tight market for engineering skills, where we often have to pay premium rates to get people with the appropriate skills. There is no point in building platforms we cannot afford to put to sea.

Better Defence Acquisition

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am sorry to say that where there is a single supplier or a national security reason for our having to procure in the UK, we cannot magic up a competitive marketplace. What we can do in such circumstances is control the pricing of those contracts. At the moment, under the current regime, profit is clearly controlled but costs are not, and there is no incentive for contractors to control and manage their costs. What we are proposing is a regime where, as now, profit is controlled but where there are clear financial incentives for contractors to control their costs and get them down. By working in this way—by aligning the interests of defence with those of the contractors—we will drive out cost and increase the amount of deliverable military capability to our armed forces.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

What implications will this announcement have on complex weapons systems and in particular on establishments such as Defence Munitions Beith in my own constituency, which houses and services such weapons systems?

[Mr Hammond]

In terms of our procurement of weapons systems and of contractor support for weapons systems, the DE&S will work as the agent of the Secretary of State. I am not sure that I can put my finger on the precise function of the establishment mentioned by the hon. Lady, but we have a separate programme to outsource some of the defence logistics and commodity procurement activities, which I mentioned earlier. None of theses plans will be changed by whether DE&S is run in future as a GoCo or as a fully public sector DE&S+ model.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that that is precisely our intention. At the Chicago NATO summit in May we expect to put together a package of ongoing financial support to the Afghan national security forces to allow them to take control of their own security in Afghanistan and maintain it as properly governed space.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

Sixty-nine years ago tomorrow, HMS Dasher sank off the coast of North Ayrshire and 379 crewmen lost their lives. The survivors and families have been asking for access to the Ministry of Defence files to find out what happened. Will the Minister meet me, any of the seven living survivors who wish to come, and the families to discuss the matter?

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, I would be happy to do so.

McNulty Report and West Coast Rail

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Thursday 19th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. As I mentioned earlier, an announcement was made recently about additional rolling stock for services into Leeds. I had it in my mind that that covered the route in question, but he is testing the extreme edges of my memory now, so it would be better for me to write to him with the specific answer to that question.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

Surely the Secretary of State must accept that fragmentation costs more. For example, I understand that Network Rail employs about 600 legal staff to negotiate with the train operating companies, and no doubt each operating company also employs significant numbers of such staff. Surely we should be looking at integration, as it will save us money.

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady has obviously read the RMT press release from this morning. Of course there are additional frictional costs—interfaces—in the operation of the railway that we currently have, with franchisees and an overall network operator. However, there are also a lot of unnecessary costs that are caused by the adversarial relationship between Network Rail and the train operators. As I said earlier, I do not believe that the answer is some massive revolution that requires primary legislation and will take the rest of this Parliament to deliver. Instead, this is about getting people working together differently. Let us get to a railway that is different from the one that we have now. In the railway that we have now, the brightest and the best people in all train operating companies are the ones who spend their lives allocating responsibility for failure and collecting money from each other. Hundreds of people are literally spending their days trying to decide whether each delayed train is the responsibility of Network Rail or of this or that operator. That is not productive. Getting the industry to work together, looking at industry-wide costs and focusing on solving the problems, rather than allocating blame for them, is the way forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

The High Speed 2 project will introduce a massive increase in capacity. These will be huge trains, with 1,100 seats each, and they will run at a very high frequency. Simple demand-and-supply economics should help to keep travel affordable. At the same time, after 2012, aviation will come within the European emissions trading scheme, and the carbon costs of aviation will start to be reflected in the cost of flying.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

Will the Minister rule out reclassifying Network Rail as a public company, which would be a Railtrack mark 2, and commit to a not-for-dividend organisation?