Oral Answers to Questions

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nick Harvey]

There has been not been a dramatic shift of policy on the part of the US, ISAF or the UK Government. What the American Secretary made clear, as have the French, is that they will be accelerating the pace at which they hand to Afghanistan forces the lead responsibility, but there is no suggestion that the commitment of the ISAF countries is reducing or that the numbers are necessarily reducing. Simply, the speed at which the Afghan national security forces are developing is enabling them to take the lead more. The shift will therefore be more into a training, support and mentoring role, but that does not affect the overall strategy, and the Lisbon agreement among ISAF countries remains in place.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

4. What steps he is taking to promote defence exports.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Gerald Howarth)]

We have made exports a high priority and are supporting the UK Trade and Investment Defence and Security Organisation through an active and innovative defence diplomacy initiative. I have recently returned from a successful visit to India where I led a delegation of some 25 British defence companies to promote the best that Britain has to offer. The White Paper “National Security Through Technology” published this month by the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), reaffirms our support to defence and security exports.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Over the past few months we have heard much concern expressed about the Typhoon contract. Will the Minister tell the House a little more about the exports that he is working on so that buyers are not gulled into buying second-rate outdated equipment?

[Mr Howarth]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the question. It is important that we recognise that in the United Kingdom we are fortunate. We do not rely just on major defence companies such as Thales, BAE Systems and QinetiQ. We have a raft of medium-sized companies such as Cobham, Ultra, Chemring and Martin Baker, well known for its ejector seats, and those companies have a rich supply of high technology to offer other countries. I can assure my hon. Friend that we are working hard to promote those companies as well.