Defence Capability

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) on securing the debate. I will concentrate on the particular aspect of defence and industrial capacity relating to his constituency: helicopters. It has long been understood that that is an important sector—those with long memories will remember that Michael Heseltine walked out of the Cabinet over the issue. It was also important to me. I recall that early in the coalition Government we had a deputation from the six leading aerospace companies, which pointed out that the British capacity in aerospace manufacture was gradually declining because of a lack of commitment to research and development. Helicopters were very much part of that story. On the back of that, we launched the aerospace growth partnership, a £2 billion joint research programme that did a lot to revive the sector.

The current Defence Secretary was a stalwart supporter of that programme, and of the defence partnership that was a key component within it. We also provided substantial funding through the regional growth fund to enable what was then AgustaWestland to diversify into civilian aircraft while maintaining its military capacity. Although it is seen as a niche industry, it is an important one—I think current figures suggest that about 10% of British aerospace exports come from the helicopter subsector within the industry. There is a massive supply chain; about 17,000 jobs depend on it. For the part of the country that the hon. Member for Yeovil represents, south Somerset, it is fundamental to its future as a regional economy. The industry’s health is a matter of great importance.

However, there are clouds on the horizon, as the hon. Gentleman knows well. There was a decision two years ago on Apache replacement, and he will recall that, contrary to the advice from the Business Department, his predecessor for Yeovil and others, the Government went ahead with procurement from the United States rather than from Yeovil. Since then, the pound-dollar exchange rate has deteriorated by 18%, which makes it a rather less clever decision than it may have seemed at the time. There are now doubts over the Wildcat platform. The company has a potentially excellent long-term future built around unmanned helicopters, but it needs time, resources and steady orders to maintain its capability.

[Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

I agree with much of what the right hon. Gentleman says about past Governments’ actions. In the light of that, does he agree that it would be odd to decide to scrap the Wildcat, of which we have about 60 and which is an exportable helicopter with a high degree of flexibility, in order to keep the Pumas, which are not made in the UK, are not exportable and are old, about to retire and less flexible and capable?

[Sir Vince Cable]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. The Wildcat programme is of great advantage, and it is of considerable concern to the industry that its future is now in question as a result of the opening in a very open-ended way of the procurement programme by the Government.

I want to leave the Minister with one question. Can he say quite explicitly that the helicopter sector is an important part of the industrial strategy? If he can give that statement and commitment, that is rather important. This is the only part of the whole aerospace sector where there is a completely integrated system, from R and D upstream, down to manufacture in the UK. If that is lost, an industry that is crucial to defence and to the economy is lost.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

I shall be brief, Mr Bone.

This is like wandering into a group of the last of the big spenders. I do not share the view of most of my colleagues that we should be spending more on defence. Moreover, I am always very suspicious of Members of Parliament who come and represent their constituency interests in these sorts of lobbying exercises. Therefore, I was loth to contribute to a debate that is about, from my point of view, the question of helicopters, which the leader of the Liberal Democrats raised, but I have looked into it a bit and I find, to my surprise, that I can reconcile what I want to say both with my views about defence expenditure and with the national interest rather than my constituency interest, which happen, on this rare occasion, to coincide.

I understand that, as part of the review, the Government are, rightly, considering reducing the number of kinds of helicopter that are run by the armed forces as a whole by at least one. I welcome that, because I am perfectly sure that we run too many kinds of helicopter, which is a very expensive way to do things. I understand that the choice may come down to one between the Puma and the Wildcat. As my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) mentioned, the Wildcat is built in his constituency. Many of my constituents work in the Leonardo factories that produce it. It is a relatively modern—in fact, very modern—helicopter. It is highly flexible, small, agile, armed with the latest equipment and highly exportable. It is also highly usable on the new light frigates, which unlike most of the ships of our Navy, which I persist in believing will never be used in the whole of their lives, are likely to be used, because they are small and agile themselves and may be useful somewhere in the world. They would be a great deal more use if they had helicopters on them, and those helicopters are ideally suited to that. The Army also uses them. They are very new, as I said; they have many years of life ahead of them. We own roughly 60 of them.

The Puma, by contrast, is a much bigger thing, which the Royal Air Force loves. I bear the scars, as I think the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) do, of a previous defence review, in which we found a sort of gang of all the top brass. They appeared, with spaghetti all over them, at the National Security Council, and persuaded us to invest in cats and traps and things on those very large aircraft carriers, and to get rid of the vertical take-off planes that we then had, the Harriers, because the Royal Air Force loves big fast jets. I fear that the Royal Air Force may also love those large helicopters, but they are not built in Britain. They are aged. They will be disappearing quite soon anyway. They do not carry the latest equipment. We cannot put them nearly so easily on ships.

I think it would be a travesty if we ended up getting rid of the 60 modern, light, effective, flexible, British-built, exportable helicopters, for the sake of keeping 22—if I have the number right—ancient, foreign-produced, non-exportable, heavy RAF helicopters. I very much hope that the Ministry of Defence will not make that mistake.