Armoured Cavalry Programme: Sheldon Review

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

I apologise; she is a former Minister. She knows what she is talking about—that is for certain. She made an extremely important point about optimism bias. It may be that I was a bit pessimistic in my answer.

This is a serious point, because Mr Sheldon talks about optimism bias at length. Obviously, the new initial operating capability and full operating capability are much later than we wanted them to be, but I think what happened is that DE&S sat down with General Dynamics and said, “This time we’ve got to be realistic. Let’s have a programme we can actually deliver to.” I know it is disappointing, but that is the key thing; we want to actually get this equipment delivered.

My hon. Friend’s point about having psychological confidence to speak up is incredibly important, and she is a champion on that. We conduct the pan-Defence people survey, and the last iteration of the survey asked questions in relation to psychological confidence—are people confident in coming forward and challenging the system? In the last survey, the Army was eight percentage points above the civil service benchmark, so there is improvement happening in this space.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his statement. This report makes for hard reading, and yet the humility with which he has accepted the critique is to be admired in these days of blame-shift. Mistakes were made; that is clear. It is also clear that transparency and efficiency go hand in hand. Will he confirm that the application of these lessons and new procedures will be armed forces-wide and that every officer stationed in Northern Ireland and Wales, and from the top of Scotland to the tip of England, will be made fully aware of the dangers of doing what has been done before and will embrace these changes for the better?

[James Cartlidge]

It is always a pleasure to receive questions from the hon. Gentleman; we always keep the best until last on the Opposition Benches, in my view. It is a matter of pride for me that I will be going to Northern Ireland to mark Armed Forces Week starting next Saturday, and I am looking forward to that immensely. I can confirm to him that I will not blame-shift; I will take responsibly. I am the Minister for Defence Procurement: I have the responsibility of delivering a better procurement system, and that must apply across the forces, as he rightly says.