Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

As the Minister for the Armed Forces, or for ops, it is very appropriate for me to ask the House to join me in wishing everyone in our armed forces, and their families and loved ones, a very merry Christmas. We all hope that they will come home safe.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)]

T7. Does the Minister support Sir John Parker’s recommendation that the construction of the Type 31 frigate be opened up to a much wider range of defence contractors, rather than just BAE Systems, and that in doing so we can end the defence cartel and embrace more competition?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Harriett Baldwin)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for having read that excellent report, for which we thank Sir John Parker. The Government will respond to his 34 recommendations in spring 2017.

Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

We have not hidden the fact that it is very difficult to make sure that we do everything we possibly can, but we will do that. I was on the Queen Elizabeth only the week before last and I watched our other aircraft carrier being built. When the particular moment comes, we will have the crews and these carriers will be the pride of the Navy.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)]

12. If he will make it his policy to co-operate with NATO members at the concept and assessment stage of the procurement cycle for the Type 31 frigate.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Harriett Baldwin)]

While we must maintain the UK’s freedom of action to operate independently, interoperability with our NATO allies is fundamental to virtually all UK defence capabilities. For the general purpose frigate, the Royal Navy is already exploring how that could be delivered, and considering how the ship will operate within NATO.

[Mr Carswell]

Does the Minister agree that opening up more of the procurement process to a broader range of suppliers, and avoiding any hint of protectionism, may make it possible to keep the cost of replacing our frigates low?

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman takes a close interest in defence procurement issues, and I know that, like the rest of the House, he will be eagerly anticipating Sir John Parker’s national shipbuilding strategy, which he has committed himself to publishing before the autumn statement. In that context, the hon. Gentleman will obviously be aware that complex warships can only be built in the United Kingdom.

Defence Procurement

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered defence procurement.

I am grateful to be having this debate, and I thank the Minister for coming here to discuss a subject that he and I have talked about on a number of occasions.

British defence policy should be exclusively aimed at keeping Britain safe, but is it? Instead of serving the national interest, it too often serves the interests of a cartel of defence contractors. Britain does not get military bang for the taxpayer’s buck. We spend about one tenth of what the United States does on defence, yet we have far less than one tenth of the Americans’ capability—in many areas, we can barely field 1% or 2% of their capability. We are the second-largest defence spender in NATO and the fifth-biggest defence spender in the world, but we are simply not getting value for money.

What is going wrong? The problem is procurement. Major projects routinely come in late and way over budget. To be fair to the Minister, it is not his fault; it is not even the fault of his predecessors. The problems are the culmination of successive Governments’ policies over many decades. Starting perhaps in the 1960s, successive Governments attempted to consolidate the defence-industrial base. They thought consolidation would deliver economies of scale and make the UK defence industry more viable. At a time when deindustrialisation was feared, it was believed that ensuring that different defence suppliers amalgamated and merged into one would somehow make them viable. The problem is that consolidating the supply base in any market means that the seller ends up setting the terms of trade, and so it is in defence.

I have often heard Members of Parliament say that defence inflation is somehow higher than inflation in the rest of the economy. That is often described as a fact of life—somehow inevitable—but why do defence costs and prices rise faster than prices in the rest of the economy? Higher defence inflation is a reflection of problems in the procurement process, where too much money chases too restricted a supply of goods. Restrictions on supply are fundamentally the problem. Procurement is the problem.

Some projects, such as the Nimrod MRA4—we cannot possibly blame the Minister for that fiasco—never get off the ground at all. Despite constant cock-ups, however, the MOD keeps going back to the same contractors; we keep seeing the same pattern of dependence on a handful of contractors and bad value for money. Yet, the same contractors keep getting the lion’s share of the defence budget.

The MOD should be sourcing the best equipment possible to keep our armed forces and our country safe. Too often, unfortunately, procurement ends up being protectionist. Protectionist procurement produces huge inefficiencies; it means less competition—it cuts competition —and as we know, competition drives down costs and raises standards. Without competition, contractors ended up being rewarded for failure. Protectionist procurement means we spend years designing and building new equipment from scratch, instead of buying cheaper, better, readily available off-the-shelf alternatives.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and it is good to see the Minister in his place. I look forward to a very positive response from him, because we have discussed this matter before. The hon. Gentleman is right. Defence is very important to our economy in Northern Ireland, where it provides high-tech, skilled jobs for the workforce. It is important that defence procurement is equally shared across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and that regions such as mine can receive the benefit. If that is done right, we all benefit.

[Mr Carswell]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point. I have to say that I am a little nervous about looking at the defence budget through the prism of what it means for jobs. Clearly that is important, but the defence budget’s primary purpose is surely not to act as some sort of Keynesian demand stimulus for a regional economy, but to make sure that our armed forces have the equipment they need to defeat our enemies and keep us safe.

[Jim Shannon]

We already have established companies in Northern Ireland that deliver the best and give value for money. The point I am trying to make is that they could do more if defence procurement was regionally spread.

[Mr Carswell]

I agree. If we allocated the defence budget on the basis of value for money, I am sure companies in Northern Ireland would get an enhanced share. However, if we create a system where public money is allocated on the basis of something other than value for money, we open the door—the revolving door—to lobbying and all sorts of nefarious influences. Not only is that bad in itself, but it has negative consequences in terms of giving us value for money as part of what will, by definition, always be a finite budget.

Those in the defence establishment will claim that providing Britain’s defence protection base is a strategic industry, and of course our defence industry is a strategic industry. However, they seek to justify giving privileged contractors the privileges they get on the grounds that that maintains our defence industry and that it is critical to our national security. However, let us assess that argument a little further.

The idea that Britain is self-sufficient in defence production is a myth. We need to import defence equipment and materiel. We did so throughout the last century, and it is thanks to our ability to do so that we won wars we would not have otherwise won. In fact, during the Napoleonic wars, we imported materiel and equipment from overseas through Harwich, near my constituency, to ensure that we prevailed in that struggle. Not for centuries have we been entirely dependent for our defence on equipment produced exclusively on this island, and it would be naive to assume we ever could be.

Today, British defence manufacturers cannot produce equipment without international support. There are few systems anywhere—from mobile phones to jets to missiles—that can be built and manufactured without some sort of international trade. I would say that that is a good thing. International dependence and complex international supply chains are a good thing; apart from anything else, they help to keep the peace and to enhance international co-operation. However, many supposedly British procurement options, which are sold to politicians, civil servants and Ministers as the most British option, actually mean we end up being ever more dependent on other Governments.

Let us take the example of the RAF’s new transport plane—the Airbus A400M. It is partly manufactured in the UK, and a very good thing that is too—I do not denigrate that at all. But it has a shorter range, a lower top speed and a smaller payload than the comparable Boeing C-17 Globemaster, and it is considerably more expensive to boot. However, here is the really shocking thing: if we bought the C-17, we would need the support, compliance and good will of only one Government—the United States Government. But the A400M option requires the compliance and support of the Governments of France, Spain, Belgium, Germany and Turkey, as well as that of the United States. The supply chain is even more interdependent. Far from giving us so-called sovereignty of supply, the A400M is an example of procurement that is protectionist and, at the same time, makes us more dependent and less operationally sovereign.

Defence protectionism has also created a contractor cartel. In an attempt to prop up the defence industry, successive Governments have promoted the supply side and consolidated it. That has created what economists call—this is a rather clumsy term—a monsopoly, which is a monopoly of supply. That means that a limited number of suppliers, not the state, control the terms of trade. Britain is paying over the odds because a tiny group of producers sets the terms of trade.

Big business is not the only vested interest that distorts procurement, either. Perhaps inevitably there is inter-service rivalry, so that projects serve the interests of different sectors rather than the defence interest overall. We have unenforceable anti-lobbying rules, which mean that former defence personnel can pursue what I would regard as inappropriate contacts on behalf of clients, without censure. Protectionist policy and those various crony corporate vested interests are undermining our national security. They are preventing our nation state from being able to turn whatever fiscal power we have into military muscle. We are simply being less efficient than we ought to be. We need a procurement policy that puts the national interest first and allows us to convert the fiscal power that we have into the maximum possible military muscle.

A few weeks ago, the UK Independence party parliamentary resource unit published an excellent paper called “Rethinking Defence Procurement”, in which we set out some ideas and suggestions—I think they are rather sensible, soft suggestions—on what we can do to get things right. First we suggest that the default—though not the exclusive—approach should be to buy a weapons system off the shelf. I grant that there are some weapons systems that we need to make in-house; we need that capability. However, if we want the best value equipment possible we need to be prepared to buy off the shelf.

It would be perfectly possible for us as a nation state to build smartphones that would be manufactured exclusively in the United Kingdom. Probably, they would be the size of a brick, there would be a waiting list for them and they would run on clockwork. It makes much more sense for us to buy smartphones that are the result of international co-operation, with chips built in South Korea, design from California and software from India. International co-operation enables us to have smartphones with a higher level of technology for less cost every year. We should apply a similar principle to defence procurement. We might think of off-the-shelf procurement as being almost like urgent operational requirements—which I know the military rather like. In other words, the military can buy what it wants, from whom it wants. We can think of it as an urgent operational requirement, but without the guddle and the rush.

Secondly, we need to start consolidating not the supply side but the demand side. By working with our allies we could initiate joint procurement projects. That is not a case of our building and manufacturing things jointly; that would be a supply solution. Rather it would be a matter of putting in procurement bids collectively with our allies, ensuring that in many areas we would have a buyers’ market, where the buyers collectively could set the terms of trade. We could do that with a number of countries—not just European countries and NATO members but countries such as Australia and India. If they and we needed a weapons system, why not put in joint procurement bids with our Anglosphere allies? That would drive down prices and ensure both we and our allies got better value for money.

Thirdly, I would like Parliament to have real oversight of the procurement process. Instead of just reviewing the annual report from the Ministry of Defence, the Select Committee on Defence should be required to oversee and authorise major projects. We should take back as a Parliament the power to scrutinise what the Executive spend on our account. Specifically in relation to defence, the Defence Committee should be required to approve and sign off on particular large projects. That sort of oversight would ensure that there was genuine accountability on procurement.

Finally, anti-lobbying guidelines need to become law. I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), as Chair of the Public Administration Committee, making some suggestions about that the other day. I think that is exactly what we need to be prepared to introduce, to make sure that, yes, the expertise that exists in Government Departments can be shared with contractors, but that there are public records of those contacts and that where there is a revolving door there is some accountability to ensure that nothing untoward happens.

Britain needs a defence strategy that aims above all to keep our country safe. In an era of growing threats and constrained budgets, misspending is no longer a luxury that we can afford. We need real reform. I know that the Minister recognises the need to improve the way we spend our defence budget, and that he is a reformer. I also happen to know, too, that in his Department reformers do not always get an entirely easy ride. I look forward to hearing what changes he has in mind to improve things, and whether he will consider going further and recommending any of the measures I have outlined.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Mr Philip Dunne)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. It is all too infrequent that we have the opportunity to debate defence matters—and particularly defence procurement—in Westminster Hall, so I am especially grateful to the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) for securing the debate, and I congratulate him on doing so. The subject is one of great interest to me, and to him, but of somewhat less obvious interest to other Members. It is a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) here; he takes a personal interest in the subject on behalf of his constituents and Northern Ireland.

It is a good time to have such a debate, not least because it comes two months after the Government published the gratifyingly well received strategic defence and security review in November. The review was comprehensive and ambitious, and when combined with the Chancellor’s summer Budget announcement it was good news for defence. Defence procurement is central to our plans to deliver our national security objectives, and that was precisely the point on which the hon. Member for Clacton opened his remarks—that the purpose of defence procurement must be to provide the capability for our armed forces to keep us safe. That is the primary duty of Government, as has been recognised in the priority that the Government have given defence and in the reform of defence procurement processes, in which the hon. Gentleman takes such a keen interest.

By giving us an increasing budget, the SDSR will help us to protect our people with more new planes, ships and armoured vehicles over the procurement cycle. It will help promote our prosperity. An additional task for defence—an additional strategic objective—of contributing to the economic prosperity of the country has been emphasised through the SDSR in a way that has not happened before. That has a number of implications for how we go about procurement.

Promoting prosperity provides a stimulus for innovation, which is essential for maintaining technological superiority over our adversaries. It provides the opportunity for the Department to become a champion of small business, which in many respects is where innovation originates. It also allows us to encourage defence exports, which means that we can allow our defence supply chain to be competitive internationally, from which we benefit through our own procurement. All in all that is a good thing, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree as we explore the issue in this debate and on future occasions. We are on the right track. We may not have gone as far as he would like or necessarily as fast as we would like, but in my view we are making great strides.

Before I look to the future and address some of the hon. Gentleman’s comments, it is worth acknowledging the enormous achievements in the previous Parliament. I want to preface my comments on the document prepared by his party, which he referred to and which he has in front of him, by saying that many of the criticisms it makes—in many respects rightly—relate to a period that we are now some way beyond. They relate to the defence industrial strategy that was authored in 2005-06 under the previous Administration, which no longer prevails. Part of the disagreement that there may be between us will be about the extent to which today’s policy has moved on beyond the defence industrial strategy, rather than being grounded in it.

In 2010 we inherited a defence procurement position that was unquestionably unfit for purpose. It was not delivering to time, performance or, above all, cost. That is why, at a time of heightened pressure on the national finances, we had to make some tough decisions. We did not shrink from cancelling overrunning and massively expensive programmes such as the Nimrod MRA4 programme, to which the hon. Gentleman referred in his remarks. We embarked on the most radical series of defence reforms in decades, and I am pleased to say that those reforms meant that defence ended the last Parliament in a markedly better state than it began it in.

The National Audit Office’s major projects report for 2015, which was published before the end of last year and covered the most recently available material we had, recorded a fall of £247 million in the forecast cost of defence projects—the second successive year of reductions in the major projects it reviewed. That compares with a £1.2 billion in-year cost overrun reported for 2009 by the NAO in its major projects report.

The 2015 report builds on the success of the 2014 report, which reported the best cost performance since 2005 and the best time performance since 2001. That is powerful evidence of how far we were able to progress in improving performance during the previous Parliament. Indeed, Lord Levene of Portsoken said in his 2014 report on the Department as a whole that,

“a leopard really can change its spots”—

rare praise indeed from Lord Levene.

If I may reflect on the comments of the hon. Member for Clacton and the document to which he referred, we recognised the glaring inadequacies of the defence industrial strategy of 2005-06. That was why we determined to overturn it in a White Paper published in 2012, “National Security Through Technology”, which set out our thinking on industrial policy. It replaced outdated concepts of industrial sovereignty at any cost with a much more nuanced approach, saying that the sole aim of defence procurement was to equip our armed forces with the best capabilities we could afford at the best value for money. That meant putting an end to unaffordable gold-plated requirements and instead increasingly buying things off the shelf, from the global market where possible and appropriate.

“National Security Through Technology” highlighted the benefits of working with other countries, as the hon. Gentleman seeks to do, to open up each other’s defence markets and, where we share requirements, collaborate on international acquisition programmes. The best live example of that new way of collaborating on procurement is the F-35 programme—the largest defence procurement programme in the world ever. Eleven nations are pooling their demand signal to provide as large an order as possible to the contractor consortium—at the moment in annual buys, but in the future it will be multi-year buys. That order is for three different variants of the aircraft type, but it is essentially the same aircraft type for each customer, in order to avoid the bespoking that, as the hon. Gentleman said, becomes so expensive in defence procurement. We are already doing that, and we are doing it in a big way.

The White Paper also recognised that defence procurement is different from other procurement, so for some aspects of capability, we still need to take special measures to maintain our operational advantage and freedom of action, but we stated that those would become the exception rather than the rule.

Having pointed out some of the areas where we agree with the hon. Gentleman’s critique, I will have to disappoint him by saying that I do not see the document prepared by his party as a valid critique of today’s policy and the important work that has been done over the past five years. The White Paper that we published heralded a series of sweeping reforms to defence procurement, which went hand in hand with the much-needed reforms we made to the wider Ministry of Defence. We adopted the proposals outlined by Lord Levene to overhaul the structure and management of the Ministry of Defence. We have thereby created a much leaner, more strategic head office, devolved responsibility and accountability to the single services and, crucially, stood up a Joint Forces Command to look after cross-cutting areas such as helicopters and ISTAR—intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance. Far from being dominated by single service rivalry, the Department is now more joined up than at any time in its history. That was amply demonstrated by how we handled defence’s contribution to the SDSR, with virtually no trace of the behaviours that had so coloured the exercise five years before.

Nowhere has the extent of our transformation been more ambitious than in our procurement entity, Defence Equipment and Support. DE&S provides vital support to the armed forces, without which they simply could not operate, and I pay tribute to the civilian and military staff employed in that endeavour for their dedication. Re-formed as a bespoke trading entity in April 2014, DE&S now has the freedom to make the changes needed to transform it into a world-class acquisition organisation. DE&S staff numbers have already reduced by around 18,000 since 2007 and, through transformation, we will continue to professionalise it and focus on the people and skills we need.

[Mr Carswell]

Of those 18,000 people, how many have been re-hired in a contractor or arm’s length capacity?

[Mr Dunne]

I cannot give the hon. Gentleman an exact number, but some of the activities previously held within DE&S have been outsourced. One example is the operation of the Royal Navy operating bases, which had, for some historical reason, been managed within DE&S. That has now gone back to the Navy, so those jobs by and large remain, but a large number of the 18,000 are a reduction in individual roles, to become more efficient.

Turning to how we obtain equipment, it is not as simple as making direct comparisons with other nations’ defence procurement models. Structures, roles, operational commitments and, consequently, equipment needs vary. For the past three years we have published a comprehensive and fully costed 10-year forward-looking equipment plan that takes account of our defence priorities and the capabilities needed to support them.

Our £178 billion investment in equipment over the next decade will support all three services, including committing to the F-35 joint strike fighter, which I have mentioned, and to new maritime patrol aircraft. Incidentally, we have decided that those aircraft should be procured off the shelf, to take advantage of the existing production line in the United States, to maximise interoperability with the United States and the other allies that will be procuring that capability, and to minimise bespoking, so that the cost is as plain vanilla as it can be. Through the equipment programme, we will also invest heavily in the Navy through the Type 26 frigates and in the Army through forming the new strike brigades with its equipment, which will be state-of-the-art.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Carswell]

Excellent.

[Mr Dunne]

That will allow us to acquire the capability we need, with minimal costly bespoking, in the timescale required. The hon. Gentleman has just indicated from a sedentary position that he supports those initiatives.

We share the hon. Gentleman’s view that protectionism is not good for defence or for the UK in the long term, not because we do not want to support British industry—we do—but because we recognise that protectionism provides no lasting solution. It does not give us the capabilities we need when we need them, at a price we can afford. Above all, it does not help industry. It stifles innovation, saps productivity and suppresses competitiveness.

That is why we focus on competitive procurement, with one of the most open defence markets in the world. It is why, for example, we decided to procure the new fleet of Royal Fleet Auxiliary tankers from South Korea, which the hon. Gentleman touched on in his remarks. The fleet will come into operation later this year and draws on key British technology, with some 25% of the supply chain for the vessels coming from the UK. There is still a strong UK component to an international procurement, demonstrating that having an open defence market helps to sustain a competitive defence industry in this country.

We recognised that we needed to reset the relationship with industry, particularly on the large single-source projects of which the hon. Gentleman is so critical. For that reason, we used the Defence Reform Act 2014 to reform single-source procurement. It established a statutory governance framework to ensure that costs are fair to us and to our suppliers. We have also set up the Single Source Regulations Office as an independent review body, and it has now been operational for 12 months. No longer will suppliers have carte blanche to set the terms of the trade. We believe that that will help to address the hon. Gentleman’s concern about defence inflation by imposing a much greater spotlight of transparency on individual single-source contractors and the bill invoices they submit, which we think will put downward pressure on inflationary pressures.

I point out gently to the hon. Gentleman that some of the cost comparisons in his party’s document confuse different things, often comparing apples with pears by not taking into account some of the additional costs that appear when we procure in the UK, other than on an off-the-shelf basis. We tend to include the cost of support, training and simulators alongside the cost of the capital equipment itself, which can often distort a like-for-like comparison with an off-the-shelf purchase.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

My hon. Friend is right. As the only tier 1 partner in the F35 programme, the United Kingdom is playing a very significant role. Every aft section of every F35 is manufactured at Samlesbury in his constituency, providing high-skill jobs to many of his constituents. I am quite certain that I or one of my ministerial colleagues will have the pleasure of visiting his constituency soon.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)]

T10. The Government have given a commitment to implement my party’s policy and spend at least 2% of GDP on defence. This target has been achieved by including the single intelligence account as defence spending. When might the Government meet the 2% target without cooking the books?

[Michael Fallon]

I have already made it very clear that no books are going to be cooked. Anything that is included has to meet the NATO guidelines. Where there is expenditure on defence intelligence which comes out of the defence budget, it is right that that should be included in our defence totals. The NATO figures will be there for everybody to see.

Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Dunne)]

Further to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s answer to an earlier question, I can confirm that—as it happens, yesterday—I witnessed a contract signature for the investment of a further £165 million to integrate Brimstone precision munitions on to Royal Air Force Typhoons, which will enable this unique air-to-ground strike capability to enter service on our Typhoon fleet in 2018, before the Tornadoes come out of service in 2019.

[Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)]

T8. What assurance can the Minister give that the costs of the new Type 26 global combat ship will not rise ever upwards? How much clout does his Department have in avoiding some of the mistakes of the past?

[Mr Dunne]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking that question, because he invites me to draw another comparison with the way in which this Government have sorted out the manner of our defence procurement, in stark contrast to the previous Administration. We are undertaking detailed analysis and taking contract negotiations to a much greater degree of granularity before entering contracts so that we know what we are buying and we remove risk from layers of prime contractors, following the model that we introduced in the aircraft carrier renegotiation last year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

As the hon. Lady may recall, the original proposed contract, which was considered under her Administration, was for more than double the number of vehicles for which we have contracted. Consequently, the number of people potentially employed is significantly lower. However, the contract for the Scout vehicle, at £3.5 billion, is the largest contract that the British Army has received, and involves some 160 companies, predominantly in the UK. It will sustain 1,400 jobs in the UK, and we are currently actively exploring the opportunity for the onshore assembly of vehicles, from 101 to 589.

[Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)]

7. What his policy is on the creation of a national defence medal.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Anna Soubry)]

There is a long-standing and widely understood military tradition that medals are not awarded as a record of service but in recognition of specific campaigns or operations, acts of gallantry or outstanding service. We set up an independent review into medals and decorations, and its chair, Sir John Holmes, specifically considered this matter and decided against such a medal. That decision received royal approval.

[Douglas Carswell]

MOD tradition and protocol have an important role, but would it not just be the decent thing to recognise our veterans in this way simply because they have served their country? Would it not be wonderful to have cross-party agreement to recognise them, as happens in many other English-speaking countries around the world?

[Anna Soubry]

We absolutely recognise and pay handsome tribute to our veterans. There is no better example of that than the military covenant and all that it stands for. The fact that so many people are signing up to it—businesses, all our local authorities and so on—demonstrates that the understanding of the great sacrifices made by our veterans in their service and by their families has never been higher in the public’s imagination.

Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

First, a collision warning system on the Typhoon is currently under test and if that test is successful, we would expect to roll it out. The Typhoon is a platform with a very long life ahead of it. There is also now a plan to install collision warning equipment on Tornados. The hon. Gentleman has raised this issue in the House before in relation to the very regrettable Tornado accident in his constituency in July 2012, and I have, in consequence, looked at whether, if the original procurement had gone ahead, we would have expected that equipment to have been installed on Tornados by the time that accident occurred. The answer is that we would not have expected it to be installed by that stage.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has done some sterling work to make sure that we get much better value for money from the defence budget. What role does off-the-shelf procurement have to play in that and what steps is my right hon. Friend taking to make sure that it becomes more of a default approach?

[Mr Hammond]

We have been clear that there are some areas where we need to protect UK sovereign capabilities for reasons of strategic advantage or in order to protect strategically important industrial capabilities. In all other areas we will look to procure in the way that is most effective for delivering defence.

Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Instead of the normal pleasantries of wishing you well in chairing the debate, Mr Walker, may I express my particular thanks? Owing to the peculiarity of parliamentary procedure, I was told that I was chairing the debate this morning, but it would have been difficult to be in the Chair and making my speech at the same time. I am therefore particularly grateful to you for taking my place at this early hour in the morning. I am also grateful to many colleagues for turning up to discuss this extremely important subject. Indeed, I extend my thanks to Mr Speaker—I do not know whether he selected the subject for debate or it came about in another way—for making the debate possible.

It is often said that the first duty of Government is the defence of the realm, and that is absolutely true. The first duty of Parliament is to examine what the Government are doing in defending the realm. Over 25 years, the armed forces parliamentary scheme has played a significant part in helping Members of Parliament from all parties to examine what the Government are doing. I emphasise “from all parties”, because it is important for the Opposition to have the opportunity to find out more about the armed forces through the scheme. Frankly, however, Government Back Benchers do not have easy access to the armed forces, so using the scheme as a way of finding out what our people are doing on the ground and finding out a little more about defence is an extraordinarily important thing for Back Benchers of all colours to do. I have put myself carefully in a Cross-Bench position at the end of the Chamber this morning to illustrate that this is in no sense a party political matter.

For 25 years, the armed forces parliamentary scheme has done a fantastic job in enabling Back Benchers—and, indeed, on many occasions, Front Benchers—from both sides of the House to embed themselves with our armed forces in the Army, Navy and Air Force, and to find out what is happening on the ground. They are finding out not necessarily about strategic matters or ground defence, but about how our boys and girls, as we often call the members of all three of our armed services, do their work on the ground.

We are honoured to be joined in the Chamber by the Conservative Chief Whip. Not so long ago, when he was briefly the shadow Defence Secretary, he joined us in the armed forces parliamentary scheme. It is nice that he has been able to find time to join us in the Chamber this morning.

For 25 years, the scheme has enabled an enormous number of people—265, if my counting is correct—to find out what happens to airmen, and soldiers and sailors of both sexes on the ground. There is a third level to the scheme in the Royal College of Defence Studies, where those who have graduated from the lower levels can find out more about the grand strategy and the bigger defence picture. Largely, however, the purpose of the scheme is to find out precisely what is happening on the ground.

None of that would be possible were it not for the imagination, initiative and management over 25 years of Sir Neil Thorne, ably supported by his excellent wife. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] The approbation around the Chamber confirms that everyone this morning wants me to thank him extremely sincerely for all the magnificent work that he has done in setting up the scheme and making it work. It is completely out of order, Mr Walker, to call attention to anyone in any gallery attached to the Chamber, and I would not wish to incur your wrath by doing so, but were there anyone in the Public Gallery who happened to have the name of Sir Neil Thorne, we would be happy that he happened to be here and most grateful for everything that he has done. It has been a magnificent scheme for 25 years.

The scheme has operated at four different levels—perhaps three in future—and 265 people in total have gone through it. In the introductory course, people learn a little about what the armed services are doing in general terms. There is also a postgraduate scheme, the advanced postgraduate scheme and the even more advanced postgraduate scheme, as well as a number of other schemes, all of which, I am glad to say—call me an anorak—I have very much enjoyed doing. My interest and involvement in defence have come about largely as a result of the scheme, so it has been a superb way of learning about what happens on the ground.

About a year or so ago, the Lord Speaker, Mr Speaker and the Secretary of State for Defence decided that it was time to do two things: to re-establish the scheme as a charitable trust; and to do so within Parliament. Happily, we have been able to do that over the past year or so. Last night, in Committee Room 14, we relaunched the scheme under a new name, the armed forces parliamentary trust. It is to be run by nine trustees: two appointed by Mr Speaker, namely the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and me; two from the House of Lords, who I think will be Lord Wakeham and Lord Rogan; two from the Ministry of Defence, Air Vice-Marshal David Murray and Sir Bill Jeffrey, the last but one permanent secretary; and two from industry, Helen Kennett of Rolls-Royce and Bob Keen of BAE Systems.

I am delighted that Sir Neil Thorne has agreed to become the ninth trustee and that, in response to an invitation from Mr Speaker, he has undertaken to become the life president of the scheme. We welcome Sir Neil’s continuing involvement and interest. In all, that is a good group of people to set up a charitable trust—a charitable incorporated organisation, which is a kind of mini-charity under the charity commissioners—which will be entirely within Parliament. Only last night, Mr Speaker told me that he has found accommodation in Parliament for our staff of one person, to whom I shall return. The scheme will be wholly accountable and transparent, with annual accounts, annual general meetings and the rest of it, as we must have in modern times.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

Having taken part in the old scheme and expressed a number of concerns about its corporate governance, I am delighted that the Minister and the Speakers have overhauled the scheme. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the new trust is to be properly accountable? Will it allow pesky Back Benchers, such as me, to ask all sorts of pesky questions without getting chucked out of it? Will the role of any corporate contributors be clearly defined and constrained?

[Mr Gray]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his support. The answer to both his questions is yes, on one condition: that he commits to take part in the scheme. We would welcome his contribution—he will be the lowest of the low, the most junior private soldier that it is possible to imagine, and we will put him through an absolute beasting, but I am happy to give him that reassurance. He has been a mild critic over the years, so it is useful and kind of him to come to the Chamber to offer his support this morning.

My hon. Friend asked who would be paying for the scheme, and it is worth expanding on that. Traditionally, it has been paid for by the defence industry, and there have been four main sponsors. One of the things that I have been doing over the summer is going round all the defence companies, and I have now secured promises from at least 10 and possibly 15 of them—all the majors, such as Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems and Babcock, as well as others of a similar nature—each paying a small amount of funding, which will be sufficient to cover our anticipated costs.

The reason why that is a better arrangement is because, with 10 or 15 sponsors, we can say that none is achieving anything. Indeed, my pitch to them has been to say, “I would like some money from you, please.” They have asked, “What do we get back?” and I have replied, “You get absolutely nothing in return whatever. This is CSR—corporate social responsibility—for the defence industry. You get no lobbying, no access nor your name on writing paper, unless we choose to do so, but you get the warm feeling, Mr Rolls-Royce”—for example—“ of knowing that you have helped with the education of Members of Parliament.” All of them accepted that.

Better Defence Acquisition

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is being a little harsh: most if not all of the elected and appointed people with whom I have come into contact do their very best to deliver in the public interest. We have a rigorous set of rules in place to deal with the cross-boundary issues between the public and private sectors. We must never get into a situation where we prevent or discourage all transfer between the public and private sectors. That would be a disaster. We need that flow of lifeblood between the two, but we need it to be done properly: it has to be properly regulated and transparent.

To answer the hon. Gentleman’s specific question, when The Sunday Times published revelations last year about people who had gone from senior military roles into defence industries, I asked the same question as he has and the advice I received was that it would not be lawful to issue an unlimited ban preventing people from taking up one career once they had left another.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

For decades, much of the defence budget has been spent in the interests of defence contractors: by constraining the range of suppliers, the seller gets to set the terms of trade. How will these reforms ensure more choice and competition in defence procurement?

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

7. What assessment he has made of the Typhoon and Apache platforms in Operation Ellamy.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

18. What assessment he has made of the performance of Eurofighter Typhoon in Operation Ellamy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Peter Luff)]

Typhoon aircraft and Apache attack helicopters have performed very well in Operation Ellamy, proving their military worth and fulfilling all the operational tasks asked of them. Typhoon, in its first multi-role mission in providing both air defence and ground attack, has demonstrated exceptional levels of survivability and, in its ground attack role, a targeting capability with minimal collateral damage, proving that it is a truly formidable aircraft.

[Peter Luff]

The Apache has been on about 20 sorties with no known civilian casualties—an exceptional testimony to that aircraft. Typhoon is performing exceptionally well in Libya. My hon. Friend is right that it was originally conceived as an air defence aircraft; it is now in its first multi-role combat aircraft role, and it is performing superbly. As Wing Commander J Attridge, the operational Typhoon detachment commander said,

“the Typhoon has come of age”

over the skies of Libya and we are seeing the maturation of the RAF’s first multi-role combat fast jet aircraft since world war two. We are all delighted with its performance.

[Mr Carswell]

Given that historically we have invested many billions in cold war era Eurofighters, but perhaps a little less on the unmanned aerial vehicles we need, does the Minister have any plans to switch resources from the former to the latter?

[Peter Luff]

It is not an either/or situation. UAVs have their role to play, but Typhoon is not a cold war legacy; it has proved to be an exceptionally capable modern aircraft, taking on the world and proving its exceptional worth in Libya. I am very confident of success in the large number of ongoing export campaigns around the world. Typhoon is a remarkable modern aircraft with a very bright future ahead of it.