(10 years, 9 months ago)
Grand CommitteeMy Lords, I shall not speak about the advantages or disadvantages of a GOCO; I remain fairly neutral on the issue. I have listened with great interest to the very good speeches that we have heard so far on this clause stand part debate started by my noble friend Lord Rosser. What concerns me is the point about an affirmative order being somehow a solution to this problem.
I will not speak with my ex-Minister for Defence Procurement hat on at this stage, although there is plenty that I could say and would like to say. I am concerned about statutory instruments being used in Parliament in both Houses as a way of holding Governments to account. My experience is that orders, whether negative or affirmative, are useful and the debates that follow from them are often vital when legislation is eventually brought into effect. My concern is that they are no way for Parliament to stop something happening that should not happen.
I speak from experience. This is not a boast but I am one of the few Members of this House who has successfully won a fatal Motion on an affirmative order. There are others on all sides of the House, but it is a very rare event. It happened a few years ago, on a completely different subject from this one, to legislation which required an affirmative order but was resisted. The House voted on that occasion by a very small majority not to pass the affirmative order. The consequences of that for the cause that I was espousing were probably worse than if I had not won that vote. The Government decided that they would do absolutely nothing about the fact that the affirmative order had been voted against and so the previous position then applied. It was a worse position than the one I was trying to get and on which the House had supported me. Since then, forgive me, I have been slightly sceptical—even cynical, sometimes—about how effective opposing affirmative orders can be. We know that we can oppose them, regret them or just have a debate on them, whichever either House decides to do, but the effect is nearly always the same: the Government get their way. The primary legislation is there and it is extremely hard—often impossible—even if the primary legislation needs to be amended by the affirmative order, for that to happen.
All I am saying in this debate is please do not choose an affirmative order as a way to get around this issue. Frankly, once you have passed legislation that includes a GOCO, if that is what the House decides to do, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for either House of Parliament to change the position.
My Lords, I shall speak briefly to the amendments. I look at the matter from the point of view of the user, the Armed Forces, and what is in it for them.
Nowadays, the Armed Forces will have much more say over the amount of money that may be spent on their equipment, and therefore they may take more of an interest in the detail of the procurement side than was true in my day. Nevertheless, it is important that they have confidence that whatever system is going to procure their equipment has general support throughout the country and throughout government. At the moment we have two propositions, neither of which seems to be making good headway. The GOCO has certainly made no headway and it remains to be seen how well the DE&S+ will go—I even have doubts about that—but, of the two, I prefer it the GOCO.
However, dealing with the amendments, I find a good deal of attraction in Amendment 25. It brings the super-affirmative approach to the issue and is the one that I would favour.
My point is that an affirmative resolution does not really provide any effective stop for Parliament, not that it does so. Given my experience of affirmative orders that have been fatally objected against, I wonder how the noble Lord can say that an affirmative order that is defeated really changes things. What happens is that the Government of the day—this is not a reflection on the Minister’s Government—say that the legislation has been passed and the affirmative order must therefore also be passed. In reality, fighting affirmative orders is not an effective way of allowing Parliament to give its view. For something as vital and important as this, having merely the protection of an affirmative order somewhere down the line is not nearly enough. I should be interested to know why the Minister thinks differently.
I tabled our amendment after approaches from a number of noble Lords from different parts of the House who wanted to allow any future Government flexibility with which to introduce a GOCO, if that was thought to be the best thing at the time. In reply to the noble Lord’s question, one simply would not have the legislation without the commencement.
(12 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I would certainly welcome a debate on this subject, not least of all because it would give me more time to swot up on a complicated subject. As for the advantages of privatising Defence Equipment and Support, and as far as the Armed Forces are concerned, there is a compelling case for reform. Analysis has shown that cost and schedule overruns have resulted in significant additional cost to the defence budget of the order of hundreds of millions of pounds each year. A GOCO offers the greatest likelihood of focused and sustained improvement. It has the strongest incentive for culture change and a drive for productivity. The Armed Forces will benefit from getting equipment and services on time and at the right price.
My Lords, do the Government believe in the concept of a defence industrial policy? It seems to some of us that in reality this plan may mean that within a fairly short time we will be buying off the shelf from anywhere, at the expense of—and with no regard for—the British defence industry, which is an excellent manufacturing industry, one of the few that remain, providing many jobs and great skills, very much to the benefit of this country. Some of us worry that the ultimate consequence of this sort of decision will be to kill off the British defence industry. Does the noble Lord agree?
My Lords, it is very nice to see the noble Lord back here discussing defence issues. I can assure him that we buy the best equipment for our Armed Forces. That is our starting and ending point.
I am sorry, the noble Lord, Lord Bach. It is a mistake I have made before. Bad map-reading; I apologise.
My Lords, if I can start again, can my noble friend tell us whether in any debate that we have he will be prepared to answer questions about how research and development will be continued under the new organisation? It is very important that the budgetary and technical skills of the department, the military and the commercial suppliers are co-ordinated. How is that going to be managed and by whom?