§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach)My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Geoffrey Hoon) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
I am pleased to announce that we have decided to extend the future aircraft carrier (CVF) programme assessment phase. This extension will enable us to carry out further risk reduction work and increase the maturity of the design prior to making our main investment decision on demonstration and manufacture (D&M). In line with Smart acquisition principles by spending the right amount of time and money in the assessment phase, we will gain a better understanding of the technical and supply-side risks before we make any major commitments. We had planned to complete this risk reduction work within the original demonstration phase. The underlying programme has not been adjusted, but rather the point at which we make the main investment decision has shifted.
We anticipate moving into the D&M phase during 2005, following the main gate decision. At this point we intend to finalise performance, time and cost parameters of the carriers. These will continue to be refined during the remainder of the assessment phase. Our target in-service dates (ISD) for the CVF remain 2012 and 2015. When built, the two vessels will be
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Table 1: Deaths to UK Gulf Veterans1 April 1991–30 June 2004 Causes2 ICD Chapter Cause of death Gulf Era Mortality Rate Ratio 95% Confidence Interval All deaths 663 675 0.98 (0.88–1.09) All cause coded deaths 647 652 0.99 (0.88–1.10) I-XVIII Disease related causes 285 341 0.83 (0.71–0.98) I Certain infectious and parasitic diseases 6 3 1.99 (0.43–12.30) II Neoplasms 129 141 0.91 (0.71–1.16) V Mental and behavioural disorders 11 17 0.64 (0.27–1.46) VI Diseases of the nervous system 10 11 0.90 (0.34–2.35) IX Diseases of the circulatory system 97 121 0.80 (0.60–1.05) X Diseases of the respiratory system 10 6 1.66 (0.55–5.55) XI Diseases of the digestive system 16 23 0.69 (0.34–1.37) III, IV, XII-XVIII All other disease related causes3 6 19 0.31 (0.10–0.82) XX External causes of mortality 362 311 1.16 (0.99–1.35) Transport accidents: 167 127 1.31 (1.03–1.66) Land transport accident:4 136 106 1.28 (0.98–1.66) largest and most powerful warships ever constructed in the United Kingdom.
We have also agreed the alliancing principles with industry for the CVF programme which confirms the commitment of all parties to the programme and to an alliance based on commercial best practice. The alliancing principles will provide the most effective way of managing risk and reward and will bring together all parties with a vested financial interest, thus ensuring that we deliver CVF collaboratively. We will now discuss and agree the detailed alliancing arrangements with industry, including the roles and responsibilities of alliance members.