HC Deb 29 November 1983 vol 49 cc747-8
2. Mr. Willie W. Hamilton

asked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will take further steps to supply Parliament with more detailed information on defence expenditure.

The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Stanley)

My Department already publishes a considerable amount of information on defence expenditure, including the annual Estimates, the Appropriation Accounts, and the annual statement and statistics on the defence Estimates, together with various memoranda submitted from time to time to parliamentary Committees. It is also open to individual right hon. and hon. Members to seek additional information on expenditure by the usual parliamentary means, and many indeed do so.

Mr. Hamilton

When the Minister was drafting that answer, did he have in mind the article that appeared in The Observer of a week or two ago, which set out breathtaking examples of gross incompetence, waste and lack of accountability in the Ministry and instances in which accounts had been deliberately withheld from the Comptroller and Auditor General? It was stated in the article that the original estimate for the naval control centre in the underground bunker at Northwood, west London was about £30 million and that within two years it had increased by 500 per cent. to £168 million? Will the hon. Gentleman confirm, or deny, those figures?

Mr. Stanley

I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a specific answer to his question on that item of expenditure.

Mr. Hamilton

Why not?

Mr. Stanley

I can assure him that there were a great many inaccuracies in the article in The Observer. The Ministry's expenditure is subject to the full accountability and control that exists both within Departments and in the House. It comes within the parliamentary controls of the House that are exercised over individual Government Departments.

Mr. Robert Atkins

If my hon. Friend is able to publish more details of expenditure within his Department within the next year, will he bear in mind that many people from Lancashire have written to me—they are present today to lobby Members of Parliament—on the importance of including the new fighter aeroplane, the agile combat aircraft? I recognise that the Government, through my right hon. Friend's Ministry, have done all that is necessary so far in waiting on the agreement of the German and Italian Governments, but will he recognise the importance that my constituents attach to the project?

Mr. Stanley

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for once again representing so vigorously the views of his constituents. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence Procurement has noted closely what he has said.

Mr. Silkin

Will the Minister give us some more detailed information on the cost to the nation of the closure of the naval dockyard at Gibraltar, especially as the Gibraltar workers are now doing their very best to ensure that the dockyard is not closed?

Mr. Stanley

I do not think that I can add to the many detailed parliamentary statements that have been made on the costs involved in the Gibraltar dockyard.