RAF Equipment (Hansard, 26 November 1996)

§ 5. Mr. Sweeney
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has for RAF equipment upgrades over the next three years. [4313]

§ The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. James Arbuthnot)
Over the course of the next three years, the RAF will take delivery of upgraded Tornado attack and fighter aircraft, EH101 support helicopters, additional Chinook helicopters and the advanced short-range air-to-air missile. These and other important programmes represent significant enhancements to the RAF's capabilities.

§ Mr. Sweeney
I welcome those announcements. Does my hon. Friend agree that the maintenance of progress in updating our equipment is vital to the morale and efficiency of the RAF? Will he comment also on the implications for RAF St. Athan, which he knows is the biggest employer in the Vale of Glamorgan and does much high-quality aircraft maintenance work?

§ Mr. Arbuthnot
I agree with my hon. Friend, and I pay tribute to his consistent support for the excellent work done at RAF St. Athan in his constituency. He spoke to me recently on that subject. The "Competing for Quality" programme at RAF St. Athan will continue, because it has helped to save hundreds of millions of pounds for the armed services, which can then be spent on equipment such as that to which I have referred.

§ Mr. Hardy
While I welcome the fact that the Royal Air Force will receive updated and proper equipment, does the Minister recognise that it also needs high morale and good people? Does he recognise that, in the past few years, the Government have cut manpower in the Royal Air Force by almost two fifths and often subjected those who remain to gross overstretch? That situation needs attention.

§ Mr. Arbuthnot
The morale of the Royal Air Force is very high and service men know that they are highly valued by the party in government, partly because of the equipment programme to which I have referred. As a result of that programme, spending on RAF equipment will almost double by the turn of the century. That is fantastic news for the Royal Air Force, and the hon. Gentleman should not downplay it.

§ Sir Anthony Grant
Will my hon. Friend tell us when a decision will be made on the RAF TriStar support contract, which he will appreciate is of great concern to Cambridgeshire? We are anxious that the expertise of Marshalls—the company that he knows all about—should not be lost.

§ Mr. Arbuthnot
My hon. Friend has spoken to me on several occasions about this important contract, for which there are a number of competitors. I hope to make a decision shortly.

§ Mr. Murphy
On the day of the Budget, Ministers talk grandly about saving money. Will the Minister tell the House how much money was squandered on the Tornado disaster at RAF St. Athan? Was it hundreds of thousands of pounds, millions of pounds or tens of millions of pounds?

§ Mr. Arbuthnot
The hon. Gentleman is doing it again: he is irresponsibly playing with figures. It is far too early to give the precise amount involved: there must first be a full investigation. If the Labour party came to power, it would undertake a strategic defence review with the painful consequences to which the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) referred. We know that those painful consequences would be cuts in defence, cuts in the numbers of our armed services and cuts for our defence industry. The hon. Member for South Shields admits that those would be the painful consequences.

§ Mr. Bill Walker
Will my hon. Friend remind those who are critical of our concern about the future of Eurofighter of the TSR2? We had a world leader and a world beater that was cancelled by a Labour Government. Will he also remind Volker Rühe that, when the German Parliament considers the future of the Eurofighter, it should remember that we could still go it alone? We could call it the Spitfire, and at a later date we would be happy to sell it to the Luftwaffe.

§ Mr. Arbuthnot
What a tempting prospect. My hon. Friend referred to the TSR2. I think that it was a Labour politician who said that we do not need to look into a crystal ball; we just need to read the book. We know what would happen if there were a Labour Government.