§ 46. Sir J. Langford-Holtasked the Minister of Aviation what study he has made of the suggestion made by Dr. Barnes Wallis to the British Association meeting at Cambridge on 2nd September, 1965, details of which have been sent to him, concerning the building of a British aircraft capable of flying at 300,000 feet at 28 times the speed of sound; and what research is proceeding into the building of such an aircraft.
§ Mr. Roy JenkinsWe are not at present contemplating building a hypersonic research aircraft, but problems associated with sub-orbital aircraft are being 417 studied within a continuing but limited programme of hypersonic research.
§ Sir J. Langford-HoltIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that many people are very fed up at seeing this country having to buy Dr. Barnes Wallis's invention? Can he give us an assurance that this will not happen again—that a British invention will not be developed overseas instead of at home?
§ Mr. JenkinsWe will certainly follow this closely but before I invest a great sum of money in building Mach 28 aircraft I think we had better get our Mach 2.2 flying.
§ Mr. Raphael TuckOn a point of order. I do not think that my right hon. Friend answered Question No. 44, Mr. Speaker.
§ Mr. SpeakerThat is not a point of order.
§ Later—
§ Mr. SpeakerI owe an apology to the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Raphael Tuck), whose point of order I misunderstood. I thought that he was questioning the Answer which the Minister had just given to a Question. He would have been out of order in doing so. I imagine now that what he was seeking to do was to ask whether his Question had been answered with a previous one. The answer is that it had been answered with a previous one.