Oral Answers to Questions

Will Quince Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

I am very much aware of my hon. Friend’s success in securing a position in the private Members’ Bill ballot to introduce legislation on this very subject. I have the privilege of confirming to him and to the House that I will be answering those debates, so we will have plenty of opportunities to discuss this issue. The bald fact is that we are meeting the 2% commitment this year, and as I have just said, we will meet it each and every year of this Parliament.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

21. What plans he has to invest in new equipment for the armed forces.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Mr Philip Dunne)]

Once again, this Government, in stark contrast to what happened during 13 years of the Labour Government, have not relied on a wish list of unfunded equipment projects. Instead, we have balanced the budget and committed to a real-terms increase in the defence budget. We will be meeting our NATO commitments, not just—I will say it once more—on spending 2% of GDP on defence, but on investing 20% of the defence budget on equipment.

[Will Quince]

Colchester is home to 16 Air Assault Brigade, the Army’s rapid response unit. Will my hon. Friend ensure that it has the best possible equipment to tackle the many challenges that we may ask it to face?

[Mr Dunne]

I am very pleased to welcome my hon. Friend to the House. He has a considerable military interest in his constituency, not least the 16 Air Assault Brigade. The new A400M Atlas air transport aircraft is being introduced to replace the C-130 Hercules fleet, and the third of those aircraft was delivered to the RAF last week. The ongoing development trials of the Atlas will mean that parachutists and their equipment from the UK rapid reaction force will be able to parachute from both sides of the aircraft and the ramp, and it will become the air mobility transporter of choice for rapid reaction forces—