Armed Forces: Vehicles

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the Warrior is very popular with our troops. I was out in Afghanistan two weeks ago and I spent quite a lot of time talking to members of the Armed Forces who work with this bit of equipment. They are very impressed by it. It is seen by insurgents as a tank and they will normally melt away on its arrival. It provides excellent mobility and survivability and is able to operate over the most difficult terrain. I need to be careful what I say for security reasons but I can say that the recent incident was a combination of several really unlucky combinations. No vehicle in theatre, including one with a V-shaped hull, would have survived a similar explosion. Warrior has been extensively upgraded, particularly to deliver enhanced protection against IEDs. I have copies of the upgrade work on the Warrior, which has been security cleared. I am very happy to distribute them to any noble Lords who would like to see them.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, anybody who knows anything about this subject will know that the noble Lord is absolutely right. There is a level of weight of explosive which will destroy any vehicle, including a main battle tank. That is just one unfortunate fact of life. In my time I think that I ordered eight new armoured vehicles, seven of which were procured specifically for Afghanistan under the UOR initiative. I hope that all of them were successful in their way. Does the noble Lord agree with me that the outstanding success among them has been Mastiff 2 and that there must be a very strong case, even though Mastiff 2 was ordered under the UOR programme, for keeping that permanently in inventory, where almost certainly its qualities will be necessary in any other deployment we make in a third world context?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, this Government take the protection of our Armed Forces against IEDs very seriously. I know that the previous Government did so as well and I pay tribute to them for what they did in this area, particularly as regards equipment such as the Mastiff. I take seriously what the noble Lord says about Mastiff in the future. We are looking at that very closely.