Defence: Carrier Strike Capability

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

No, my Lords, I do not think that it is short-termism. We are in very good company with the B-variant. The US Marine Corps uses it; it is buying a lot of Joint Strike Fighters. The Italians are also going to buy them for their carrier. It is not short-termism at all.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, although everyone seems happy that we are now back on the right track, can the Minister give us an estimate of the extra abortive expenditure involved in the unnecessary adventure of cat and trap?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I have already given an answer to the second question. I will read it out again, but before I do I must say that I am very grateful to the noble Lord for assuring me that we are on the right track. I said that at the end of April we had committed £39 million to conversion investigations and a further £1 million to an air-to-air refuelling study. We do not consider that money to have been wasted. Changing variant was considered the best course of action at the time of the SDSR and those costs were necessarily incurred. Without a detailed investigation of the impact of carrier conversion, we would not have been in a position today to identify the significant rise in estimated costs and to decide to call a halt to the programme.