Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

That leads on nicely from the answer that I just gave. The mental health strategy was brought in. This was not working well before, and people were reluctant to come forward. We now have 11 major departments across Britain established in the main hubs of where our armed forces are based that are designed to assist people in stepping forward and dealing with mental health issues. We should also recognise that the armed forces 24/7 military mental health helpline, which allows direct access to support 24/7, was launched last week.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

10. What recent discussions he has had with his international counterparts on NATO modernisation.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)]

At last month’s NATO defence ministerial, we discussed NATO modernisation. This is a UK priority, and my ambition is for a modern NATO, fit to face the new global challenges and delivering against its commitments. We will take further decisions to modernise the alliance when Defence Ministers next meet in June and at the next NATO summit in Brussels in July.

[Mr Fysh]

UK defence equipment manufacturers can bolt on to EU defence programmes. For example, with its unmanned systems project with the MOD, Leonardo in Yeovil is well placed to help Leonardo in Italy with its recently awarded EU defence project in multinational unmanned systems integration. Can my right hon. Friend assure us that such co-operation will happen without the UK submitting to EU defence operational and equipment investment governance that may risk undermining NATO?

[Gavin Williamson]

Yes, I can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

Blimey! That really is speculation. No, I think I can absolutely scupper that one.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Yeovil’s multi-role Wildcat helicopters ably support and protect our Army units and could be upgraded with missiles even better to support more focused strike brigades?

[Mark Lancaster]

Of course, those are just some of the questions we are considering under the ongoing national security capability review, the purpose of which is to decide how best we can use the money we are investing in our armed forces to maximise their capability.

Defence Capability

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Government’s review of defence capability.

It is a pleasure the serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, and an honour to engage with the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), in this vital debate. People throughout the country will remember his empathy, bravery and application when he helped the emergency services during recent terror events not far at all from here. They will not be surprised to learn that he served in our armed forces with distinction before he came to this place. They will recognise the virtues that he displayed that day as the instincts of our armed forces personnel serving throughout the world. We are all lucky to have him representing us as a Minister.

At the battle of Thermopylae some 2,500 years ago, a vastly outnumbered 300 Spartans led resistance against the massed ranks of Persian invaders from the east on a narrow seaside salt marsh only 100 metres wide, while their Greek allies retreated behind them, better to defend their homeland. That Spartan royal guard, who were specially selected for their prowess and the fact that they had sons, and their King, Leonidas, all perished together at those hot gates. They bought their allies crucial time to fall back and regroup, to preserve what they held dear. A famous ancient memorial inscription to them at the site reads:

“Go tell the Spartans…that here, obedient to their laws”

300 lie.

The Greek word for laws that was used is ambiguous. It can mean orders. That ambiguity was appropriate, since at that particular festival time, the Spartans usually observed a strict religious law that was against their normal tradition of military readiness. However, they had been ordered by the Spartan political council to lead this vanguard of the Greek city states’ defence, and they put aside what must have been deeply mixed feelings to do the duty that had been assigned to them, for their countrymen and for wider civilisation. The culture of the enlightenment and the forces enlisted throughout history to help defend it have drawn inspiration from these men, who did their duty for the greater good against all odds.

We all remember Nelson’s final message, that

“England expects that every man will do his duty”,

and his own personal sacrifice for our nation and our allies. Our modern civilisation and modern forces face different challenges and threats, but what does not change is our crack forces’ heroic willingness to go all out, head on and straight at them, to defend each other and what we hold dear. When our modern-day political councils ask what our country should ask of those who are willing to put themselves in harm’s way for us, and how we should help them, we need to remind ourselves of the value of that bond in blood that binds our history and our fighting generations. It is easy for generations whose family memory is distant from the sacrifices our nation made to make the future safe to lose feeling for their importance. However, the modern western civilisation in which we live and into which most nations—even those from outside our tradition—seek to integrate, even while maintaining their own traditions, is founded on a rules-based system that we, as much as any nation, helped to make. We must be prepared to defend it.

Our politics, our freedom and our democracy are worth fighting for, now as always. It is only through preparation, innovation, training and modernisation in our time of relative peace—when the gates are not so hot, as it were—that we will ensure that, should things change, this and successive generations can fight and win.

It is right that in this fast-changing and in many ways increasingly dangerous world we constantly consider how to enhance our capability, capacity and ability to defend the things that we hold dear. The Government recognise that. They have a growing budget for defence and they are committed to the regeneration of our capabilities. They are committed to spending at least 2% of GDP and to grow the defence budget by at least 0.5% above inflation every year. We need to get the most out of that spending and to ensure that our armed forces and other security and support services have the resources, forward thinking and support from our nation that they need to succeed, if at any stage they are called upon. It is right that we, as politicians, in close consultation with our security advisers, military and otherwise, clearly assess our capability requirements in different areas. It is also right that we constantly drive for value for money in the long term, which includes ensuring that we have a highly productive, agile and innovative defence and security industrial base that is a strategic asset and deterrent in its own right. The political councils of our time must take a long-term view and provide consistent leadership on policy in this area for military and security chiefs to implement.

At this time especially, as we leave the political construct of the European Union, we must lead in showing that our European friends and allies have no more dependable, able and committed a partner in defence and security than the United Kingdom. I believe that the people of the UK instinctively understand that and have the overwhelming will and desire to ensure that it remains the case. The vast majority of people across politics get that when it is expressed in this way. Those who rail at the inefficiency of Brussels and its largesse, inscrutable accounting and questionable politics would nevertheless, without hesitation, defend the values at the heart of homes across Europe. Those of almost all shades of political opinion on how we should improve our compatriots’ lot would agree in a heartbeat that the defence of our shared basic values of liberal democracy and the rule of law should be defended in as modern and effective a way as we can muster. Most people understand that those values provide and preserve the certainty that is fertile ground for prosperity and happiness to flourish, and that protecting and nurturing them is a multigenerational and never-ending endeavour for us all to pursue.

I will leave it to others to catalogue the ways in which our ongoing and upgraded sovereign contribution could help to preserve the rules-based structures that nations of the world enjoy, but let us make no mistake: every child, every family and every individual throughout the land should understand that our willingness to stand up for the civilisation that we hold dear is part of what makes us the people we are, and temporary strictures should not be allowed to detract from that. We are proud of our forces and of the people who serve in them, and we want them to be proud, too. We want them to serve, safe in the knowledge that they and their loved ones will be looked after. If we need to spend more to ensure that they know that, then that is what we must do.

We should not underestimate the economic value to our communities of defence spending. That value comes not just in pounds, shillings and pence, or in the form of the 10,000-plus jobs that support families across my constituency, for example. No—the ethos of service, and respect for it, has its own much wider value in society. If we want public servants who are committed and dedicated to often unseen work, they need to know that, even when they are not thanked, we are thankful. If we want people to look out for each other, it helps to think about what we would do to help each other in extremis.

Everyone in our nation has been touched by stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things in recent moments of need, in Manchester, London, Paris, Brussels and Nice. Our defence personnel, our security services, our police forces and all the other public servants and civilians who leap into action daily inspire us. They, too, are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Let us think about how we inspire those who make that their life’s work. Let us ensure that we have the most excellent personnel to operate our state-of-the-art new equipment. Let us ensure that they have good pensions and homes. Let us ensure that they are incentivised to give their all.

Colleagues will, I hope, speak about how we used to spend more on defence. I will highlight two aspects of that as food for thought. In the early part of the cold war, we spent 6% of GDP on defence. I do not necessarily advocate spending quite as much as that, and obviously circumstances are different. However, it may be worth noting, at least for theory’s sake, that if the UK were to make up the other EU nations’ deficit of spending against their NATO target of 2% of GDP, we might do that by spending 5.5% to 6% of our GDP.

Some extraordinary new strategic assets are coming into our forces, not least the two Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers and their complements of aircraft, which it would absolutely be in our allies’ interests for us to be able to deploy, concurrently, in the European sphere and elsewhere. We should maximise the sovereign usefulness of those assets by making sure we can operate them in battle groups on our own if need be. Our naval programme should be geared towards that, and our defence spending and training of skilled personnel should be upgraded substantially to deliver it.

My community in south Somerset is particularly proud of the contribution that it makes and can make in future through the Fleet Air Arm at Yeovilton and the helicopter manufacturing and wider defence industry supply chain. I strongly believe that the armed forces component of our national security must have a 360-degree ability to deal with all requirements. For me, amphibious capability is an essential part of that. I strongly support the modernisation of our Army and want it to have sufficient trained personnel to be scalable and capable of sustained use, with properly equipped medium-weight strike brigades that can make an essential contribution to allies and that are a strategic deterrent in themselves.

I am conscious that the tempo of operations and lack of proper equipment, at least in the early part of operations in recent middle eastern engagements, put significant pressure on the Army and its families, and that must not happen again.

Helicopters were one thing our forces lacked, and I am proud of the way that my Yeovil community has helped to give our forces proper battle-space protection and mobility with its Wildcat and Merlin programmes. In particular, I note Wildcat’s agility and flexibility in close support operations, versatility over land and sea, and flexible and powerful inter-operation with other key systems in both the naval and army spheres. Although there may be other systems that one might want to add for specific purposes, I believe it would be immensely short-sighted not to upgrade and extend our indigenous helicopter platform capabilities, and indeed support, as the Ministry of Defence is, the development of the next generations of battle-space mobility and protection products.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman giving way on that point. Does he agree that it would be great to see a defence industrial strategy that really set out a vision for the way in which we procure stuff from the MOD, particularly to support the British steel industry, which is close to my heart, so that we do not see a repeat of the procurement process for the Type 26 frigate, which saw just 35% of the steel in each ship coming from British steel?

[Mr Fysh]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She makes an excellent point. I will come on to industrial strategy in a moment.

I will be working as hard as I can with industry partners to raise the tempo of productivity and innovation to match the commitment from the Ministry of Defence. Defence should be a fundamental part of our industrial strategy for both military and economic reasons, and I stand ready to work with Ministers and their Departments to ensure that we get this right and that proper account is taken of these matters during the defence and security review.

So what are the arguments against spending more? There are those who say we do not have the money. I wish a strong signal to go to the Treasury and Cabinet Office from this debate that it is a false economy not to give defence what it needs to regenerate a full 360-degree capability at this time. We could certainly use a few billion pounds a year currently given in international development, with overwhelming popular support and much greater domestic economic impact.

I have made other multibillion pound suggestions for savings to the Chancellor for his upcoming Budget, which I look forward to discussing with him again. To those who say we have other priorities, I say that this Government more than any other have focused spending on defence and on regeneration of our capabilities, and that this success needs to be reinforced. Economic value added to our communities and inspiration to our people and our allies should be top priorities for us at this time.

To those who say we do not have the will, I have never underestimated the ingenuity, good humour and grit of the British people. We should not hide our light under a bushel. I believe most of our fellows citizens would be proud to see it shine as a beacon for all to rally around.

I will conclude now because I want to allow time for others to speak. We all have a duty to do what we can to keep ambitions for our civilisation open to the next generations. There are some things worth fighting for, and we need excellence in the fight for them in all aspects of what we do every day. We have a duty to honour those who have gone before us. Giving our defence what it needs now is part of defending what they held dear.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

The House might like to know that the winding-up speeches will start at 4 o’clock. Only four Members have written to say they wish to speak. I shall take those Members first and then get in as many others as I can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Fysh]

I thank all hon. Members for turning up to this important debate. We have heard that since SDSR 2015 the challenges have increased and so has our need to project our capabilities and to make them available to our allies on a full-spectrum sovereign basis. We heard from many Members about the energy we need and about our potential deficiencies, not least in integration with industrial strategy, which in defence must be an essential consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

We already publish a huge amount of information about the number of strikes that the Royal Air Force has carried out. That information was updated today on the Ministry’s website. It gave details of operations last week in and around Mosul, and a strike to the west of Raqqa. That information has already been made public but I will, of course, look again into whether we can improve on it.

[Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

T7. I welcome the visit to Yeovil earlier this year of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), and the investment in Crowsnest fleet protection to be provided by our Merlin helicopters. What is she doing to ensure that Boeing works with Leonardo in Yeovil on the UK’s Apache helicopters, and to encourage Boeing further to build capability in the strategic aerospace cluster in Yeovil?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I was very impressed when I visited my hon. Friend’s constituency earlier this month. Of course, Leonardo helicopters will support our existing Apache Mk1 helicopters until they are retired from service. I am delighted that Boeing announced last week that it will make the UK its European base for training, maintenance, repair and overhaul across its defence platforms. I am sure it will want to discuss that with Leonardo, which is well placed to secure subcontract work on the next generation Apaches.

UK Helicopter Industry

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the UK helicopter industry.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. The helicopter industry is a strong existing centre of research, innovation and excellence on which we must build, using the tools emerging in the Government’s industrial strategy to secure our strategic ability to produce helicopters and other defence aerospace products. My constituency is absolutely central to that industry in the UK.

Yeovil has a long history of involvement; we have been making helicopters for many decades. Many will have heard of the company Westland Helicopters, known as Leonardo now that it is owned by the Italian Government-controlled firm Leonardo. It was initially involved in making fixed-wing aircraft, and has latterly focused more on helicopters. Our area takes great pride in the firm; pretty much everybody in my constituency is connected in some way to someone who has flown a Westland product, had a hand in making one or worked for a Westland supplier at some point in their life. It touches everybody.

It is also worth pointing out that my constituency contains the royal naval air station at Yeovilton, which flies a lot of those machines and has done for many decades. Soldiers and sailors in our armed forces know very well how important helicopters are to their safety on and around the battlefield. I particularly do not want to see a repeat of what happened in the Iraq war when armed serving officers essentially said that they did not have the battlefield helicopter support that they needed, which exposed them to unnecessary casualties from improvised explosive devices.

About 3,000 jobs in Yeovil depend directly on Leonardo, and there are more in the supply chain. It is a multi-billion-pound firm in terms of revenue generated a year, and the biggest Italian inward investment into the UK. It has an iconic set of products, including, over the years, the Westland Wessex, the Sea King, the Lynx, the Merlin and now the Wildcat. In all my dealings with the Italian management, they have shown themselves to be willing to invest more in the industry to support it. I would like our Government to step up and think about how we can make more of that good relationship with Italy.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. The fact that there are not enough Members here to back it is not an indication of the interest in the subject. Does he agree that it is essential that the skills of our workforce are not wasted? The Minister must fulfil the Government’s obligations to source locally rather than outsource, and a clear message must be sent about the possibilities of producing in Britain, the importance of a skilled and expert workforce and opportunities for apprentices in Great Britain, here at home.

[Marcus Fysh]

I absolutely agree with that sentiment. It is essential that we build on the highly skilled workforces in the UK. There is one in Yeovil, and I know that there are others within the industry in other parts of the UK. We have a great opportunity to construct a proper modern industrial strategy for turbo-charging skills development and apprenticeships.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the industrial strategy, but it makes no direct mention of this hugely important industry and the need for a stand-alone industry that produces helicopters. Will he call for a commitment—it would be great to hear one from the Minister—to a direct reference to that in the refreshed defence industrial strategy when it is announced? Will he also commit to working with everyone in Yeovil and nationally—this is a national issue as well—including Lord Ashdown, who retains a big interest in it?

[Marcus Fysh]

Yes, absolutely. It is an important national industry, and I want to see it mentioned specifically within the industrial strategy. I have been working hard—I thank the Minister for her engagement with me over many months, since she was appointed, as well as the former Minister—on how we can make the industry a part of the industrial strategy. I welcome the support of everybody across the political spectrum to help the industry go from strength to strength.

The issue is about how we go forward. We have a strong local cluster in the Yeovil area, which at the moment can produce helicopters end to end, making all parts. I would like that to continue. There is a live issue involving the Wildcat airframe jigs, as anyone who has been following it will know. It is a relatively small issue within the overall scheme of the industry, but it is an important signal that we want to be able to manufacture helicopters end to end in the Yeovil area. It would give the community a lot of confidence that we mean business about ensuring that the industry is as strong as possible for the future. The question is how to preserve the industry and take it to the next level.

I believe that joined-up thinking and a clear plan for infrastructure and skills development is essential and should be promoted through the industrial strategy. It is about raising the competitiveness of the whole industry environment in the Yeovil area, and indeed in the south-west. The thing about competitiveness is that it is both an internal and an external matter. From an internal point of view, our local industries should focus, as they are doing, on continuously improving their competitiveness, but it also helps to have external players involved. Yeovil made a fundamental mistake some years ago by not inviting Ford to come and manufacture cars in the town. That would have been good to have as a discipline.

The issue is also about promoting innovation within the industrial strategy. I welcome the Government’s strategic partnering arrangement with Leonardo to consider developing its existing platforms as well as how we can make the products of the future, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, and all their potential technology spin-offs, including battery development and so on.

It is also very important to promote inward investment, and since I was elected I have tried to create a step change in the way the town thinks about such investment, and to get it to grab opportunities to diversify its industries. That is because Yeovil very much grew up as a company town. There was a time some years ago when out of 30,000 residents 10,000 were employed at the Westland site. That number has come down over the years to about 3,000 now, but Westland remains a very important player locally. Nevertheless, the more that we can try to diversify, the better health the industry will be in.

The UK helicopter industry has very serious competitive strengths, in design and engineering, and in specialties such as the manufacture of blades and gearboxes. In addition, Yeovil works closely with the Ministry of Defence client, and skills behind that work in areas such as certification, software design, materials and acoustic treatments, are available in the local supply chain and are second to none in the world.

There is a strategic imperative for an independent design and production capability to exist in the UK, and that inevitably entails some level of Government involvement as well as early, clear and efficient procurement that will take the whole business ecosystem into account. I welcome the focus on value for money within the MOD, but we also need to think quite holistically about the impact of different procurement decisions.

It is also very important within this context that we attempt to develop indigenous intellectual property. It is much better to develop our own products, because that is how the industry captures higher margins and secures higher living standards for the workforce and the population. Building to print, using other people’s designs and simply assembling products, is just not as good a business to be in. Indeed, it is almost a distraction from what the core endeavour of design and engineering should be, which is to create product opportunities and export opportunities. So, we must have early engagement with Her Majesty’s armed forces, to ensure that we are developing the capability that they want and need, while also making the platforms flexible for volume production at different levels of capability.

As I said before, there are opportunities to deepen relationships with Italy and the EU, and with US firms. There is a huge opportunity at the moment, for example, in service and support. There is the potential for Leonardo to work closely with Boeing, which I encourage and I would like the Government to try to encourage it too, because that could be a very good foundation for new product development to emerge from the excellent cash-flow opportunities.

There is a role for Government. We have seen some part of that in the strategic partnering arrangement and I would now like to see more joined-up thinking by the MOD, including in procurement, in addition to the support that can be given by both the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and the Department for International Trade. At times civil servants in different areas have not always known what other parts of the Government are doing.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for being so gracious in giving way again. Does he agree that there is also a need to have closer relationships between the helicopter manufacturers and those companies that provide the armaments for use on the helicopters, in other words companies such as Bombardier in Belfast? It is very important sometimes that we are in touch with the companies producing the technology as it is developed. Having heard her speeches in the past, I know that the Minister is well aware of that, but does he also feel that we need that closer co-operation between these armaments companies and the helicopter manufacturers?

[Marcus Fysh]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and, yes, I absolutely agree that the industry needs to take a holistic view, in order to work with the MOD and other clients in the rest of the world, to see how we can optimise these matters.

I call on the Government to support my infrastructure-led industrial strategy plans for the Yeovil area, with broader input from the national work on industrial strategy. I would also like the Government to support the iAero hub, which is a proposal that came out of the county council and the local enterprise partnership. The idea is to network up all the aerospace technology firms in the south-west around a hub in Yeovil, with a dedicated facility in the town for manufacturing innovation. Leonardo wants to acquire land. The county council has committed to putting in some money, but we need more money for the LEP to come up with its piece and, eventually, we will need more money from the EU funding— £10 million—or whatever the successor to that EU funding is.

I would also like the Government to encourage the clustering around the Yeovil area and inward investment, which I mentioned earlier, and to help the companies to focus on transforming themselves into firms that can sell products around the world in volume, to enable them to take advantage of the very high quality products that are being produced in and around Yeovil.

I would also like the Government to support the Yeovil area as a centre of excellence and technological skills development, with an institute of technology as a step change in the local tertiary education offer. There is widespread industry support among the local tech firms for that idea, and I would like to take it forward.

I would also like to make sure that the prosperity agenda is implemented in Yeovil, to ensure that Boeing and Leonardo work together in the town to seize opportunities in service and support, and in their manufacturing supply chain.

I would like us to work more closely and creatively with Italy on mutual defence programmes, and I would love it if the Minister would find time in her busy schedule to visit Italy and meet the management of Leonardo and, potentially, some Italian politicians, to talk about the ways in which we can build on our relationship with Italy after Brexit and do even more to co-operate with Italy than we are doing now.

I would also like us to consider spending substantially more than 2% of our GDP on defence, to increase our defence capabilities with more personnel and more equipment, which will be needed given the enlarged role in global affairs that I see us having in the future. Clearly, in Europe there is a loss of confidence in America’s commitment to the NATO alliance. We should lead on that issue, and on ensuring that our friends and allies in Europe are confident that the NATO alliance will continue to matter in the future.

Last but not least, I would also like the Government to help to promote civil use of Yeovil-made Leonardo helicopters, which have an exemplary safety record. That is especially important given the low morale that currently exists among offshore platform workers, due to safety concerns about other fleets of helicopters.

To give the Minister ample time to reply to the debate, I will just summarise by saying that the Yeovil area presents huge opportunities to raise growth and export potential, and to help to drive up local and UK living standards. Its helicopter industry is the core of the UK’s strategic ability for the flexible production of crucial battlefield lift capability, and its companies are focused on delivering continuous improvement, innovation and value for money to military and civil clients, and they also make some of the safest and most capable aircraft available. So let us build on this existing centre of excellence and rotor speciality, using all the elements of the Government’s industrial strategy to drive growth, skills and innovation throughout the south-west.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

I am not quite sure of the hon. Gentleman’s exact point, because if it were up to him and his party, we would not be buying P-8s or basing them in Scotland.

[Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend support me in obtaining Department for Communities and Local Government sponsorship for the lion’s share of funding to bring forward the iAero innovation hub in Yeovil? Rapid innovation in unmanned aerial vehicles could help the MOD to deliver aid and support our military.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I thank my hon. Friend for his tireless campaigning on behalf of the excellent work done in his constituency on interesting, innovative projects, such as the unmanned helicopter system. We have committed to spend some £3 billion with Leonardo over the next 10 years as part of our long-term partnering arrangement.

Defence Estate

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

The infantry training base is going to stay in Brecon.

[Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to Yeovilton. I commend to him the opportunities to take advantage of the dualling of the A303 in order to make the most of the estate by building on what is at that location.

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I know that my hon. Friend will be pleased that Yeovilton is to become one of the specialist helicopter centres. I visited the base with him only a year ago. I note again his bidding for the dualling of the local road. This is good news for Yeovilton.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

We welcome competition in procurement for all our contracts. We also recognise that our £178 billion equipment budget is being spent with more than 5,000 businesses here in the UK.

[Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

SMEs make up a large part of the helicopter manufacturing industry in my constituency and they are worried that the potential local closure of GKN foreshadows an erosion of that. What support can my hon. Friend provide to keep a full helicopter manufacturing capability in the Yeovil area?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s fantastic work representing his constituents in Yeovil and the magnificent work that they do. We took delivery of the most recent Wildcat helicopter just in the last month. We look forward to working with Leonardo in Yeovil as part of a major strategic partnership agreement. It is important that my hon. Friend puts such issues about helicopter manufacturing forward as part of the industrial Green Paper that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will produce later this year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

I am happy to help to facilitate that meeting with the defence procurement Minister. I am aware there are a number of companies in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency that have already submitted proposals to the Centre for Defence Enterprise. I think they have received some feedback. We are as anxious as he is that we capture that know-how for the future.

[Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s recent partnership agreement with Leonardo’s helicopters division on research into unmanned aerial vehicles. Will Ministers work with me to help to maximise the effect this will have on supporting design and engineering jobs in Yeovil?

[Michael Fallon]

We are very happy to do that. My hon. Friend will recall that at Farnborough we announced the signing of a 10-year strategic partnering arrangement with Leonardo, one of the most important defence companies based in Britain. I hope that that will help to enhance jobs in his constituency through further export success, and through the right technology and innovation that also meet our defence requirements.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

It is very important, not least because of the way in which Russia has intervened in the Syrian civil war, that Russia is held to account for its actions. We took the lead in not only proposing the sanctions imposed on Russia for its actions in the Crimea—in the Ukraine—but ensuring that they were continued. They are being continued for the moment, but, obviously, once we are outside the European Union, our influence over that will be slightly diminished.

[Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the upcoming negotiation on leaving the EU presents a huge opportunity to redouble our efforts at co-operation with our EU friends and allies? What plans does he have to support UK defence industries and cross-border investments, such as those in helicopter manufacturing in Yeovil?

[Michael Fallon]

We will continue the co-operation that I have already set out—our co-operation with France under the Lancaster House treaty, and the growing co-operation we have with Germany and, indeed, with other European countries. Our recent strategic defence review is international by design and prioritises working more closely with our allies. European companies that are invested here see a rising defence budget, and we hope they will continue to invest here and to compete for the various tenders we are making available.