Edward Morello
Main Page: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)Department Debates - View all Edward Morello's debates with the Ministry of Defence
New Medium Helicopter Contract
Edward Morello Excerpts(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Luke Pollard
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question and the tone in which he asked it. I have a lot of time for him and his arguments. In fact, I think that “Shifting the goalposts?”, which talks about the rise and fall of defence spending, is one of the very best Defence Committee reports and it was issued when he was Chair of that Committee. I certainly recognise what the hon. Member for Yeovil said about timings. The contract in the procurement of the new medium helicopter included a period where the prices were guaranteed; we are keeping that in mind, because we want to make a decision and not to be timed out.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
I congratulate my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), on securing this important urgent question. Leonardo may be based in Yeovil, but many of its 3,000 employees live in my West Dorset constituency, which is why, when I was elected, one of the first meetings I had was with Leonardo and it was about the new medium helicopter. The Minister has said today that the decision will be made “as soon as possible”, but on 10 February, in response to my question in the Chamber, his predecessor told me that the decision would be made “swiftly”. Given that every single defence manufacturer, SME and even the military personnel I meet say that we need to speed up defence procurement decisions—even the SDR itself urges the speeding up of defence procurement decisions—how much confidence can British industry have that the Government are listening to that need, when a decision about something as simple as a single contractor bid is taking so long to decide?
Luke Pollard
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his advocacy for his constituents who work at Leonardo. I entirely understand what he says. We are already taking steps to reform defence procurement to speed up decisions, but I am clear that a big decision about the future of the NMH and the funding for it needs to be taken as part of the whole programme. The defence investment programme is so important and it is important that we get this decision right, so that everyone can have certainty and confidence in every single line item in the DIP, which is something they have not been able to have with the equipment programme that we inherited.