HL Deb 21 December 1966 vol 278 cc2187-204

4.46 p.m.

THE EARL OF KINNOULL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government, first, whether they intend to reach a fixed contract price with the American Government for support costs for the British order of the F 111 Aircraft; and, secondly, whether they are fully satisfied with the new American escape system to be fitted to the aircraft in preference to the well-proved British ejector seat escape system. The noble Earl said: My Lords, it is perhaps almost out of keeping with the spirit of Christmas, and the obvious good will that is displayed on the countenances of those noble Lords sitting on the Government Front Bench, to raise a subject as serious and as important as the F 111 aircraft just before the House rises for Christmas. But I do so because in my humble opinion the second part to my Question raises an issue which involves the future safety of R.A.F. pilots, an issue which I sincerely hope the Government will reconsider for reasons which I will come to.

There have not been many debates in this House on the F 111 Aircraft in the past, for the very good reason that the Government virtually purchased the aircraft off the drawing-board, and since then there has been a rather natural silence while this aircraft continued its stages of development in America. I believe I am correct in saying that the last debate on this subject was held on May 16 this year when the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, answered in some detail and, if I may say so, with great care, certain criticisms of the future operational performance and deployment of the aircraft. The noble Lord, I am sure, will be pleased to hear that I do not intend to cover the same ground again and would not, naturally, expect him to feel obliged to do the same.

The disadvantage of taking part in that three-man debate, if I may so call it, of last May was that neither the noble Lord. Lord St. Oswald, who I hope may support me to-day, nor myself had had the Privilege of having flown in the aircraft, having seen it in the flesh or even having seen a film of its flying capabilities. I do not think that on that occasion the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, committed himself as to how far his own personal experience had gone in this field; but whatever the gaps were, he certainly showed a complete mastery of his brief. At that time he explained that the Government had negotiated with the American Government a maximum ceiling price of £2.1 million for the basic F 111 which could prove cheaper if the United States programme worked out at a lesser cost. In fact, I understand now that the Government are purchasing a version of the F 111 knowns as the F111C, and perhaps the noble Lord will explain later whether the basic ceiling price for this modified version has now been agreed with the American Government.

On that occasion the noble Lord went on to explain that the total programme costs for the entire 50 aircraft, which would include both the original cost of the aircraft and the subsequent support costs, had been estimated at£280 million over the next ten years—in other words, just over £5½ million per aircraft. This figure was to include spares which would be made available, he advised us, at the same price as will be charged to the American Air Force by the manufacturers. That, briefly, my Lords, was the position as stated by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, last May.

Within the last few weeks I have had the privilege of meeting the only British test pilot so far to have flown this aircraft, Wing-Commander Fletcher, who, as the House may know, has been on three or four sorties in the early prototype of the aircraft. I must say, in fairness, that the impression one formed from meeting him was that this was a remarkable aircraft which incorporated great technical advance. Perhaps one of the drawbacks to a pilot was that it is so computerised and so automatic that it leaves the pilot feeling almost redundant.

I have also had the good fortune in recent weeks to see an unclassified film of the F 111 which demonstrated clearly the extraordinary simplicity and flexibility in the design of the servicing of this aircraft's equipment. It appeared from the film—the noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong—that the engine and its equipment is divided into sections, which can be readily withdrawn from the aircraft and replaced in a matter of moments. Although one could not but help admire the system of servicing, one formed the firm conclusion, from watching the film, that the cost of spares and the method of replacing them would prove exceedingly heavy and I venture to say would come well above the Government's present estimate.

I come now to the specific questions I should like to put to the noble Lord this afternoon on the support cost of this aircraft. First, do the Government intend to encourage British firms to manufacture under licence electronic spares of this aircraft? I deliberately limit this question to electronic spares as I am advised that it is a field for which we are geared and in which we are competitive. I need hardly mention to your Lordships the benefits which would accrue if orders for these could be placed with British firms.

Secondly—and I base this question on information I have just received—would the noble Lord explain why it is that the F 111 project branch of the Ministry of Defence are considering at this moment placing an order of the probable value of 15 million dollars with an American firm for the supply of automatic test equipment for the R.A.F. version of this aircraft, when it is known that the British industry is quite capable of meeting the technical requirements for the aircraft and at a much lower cost? Would the noble Lord also explain why not a single British company has so far been invited to tender for this equipment? The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has a very high reputation in this House for answering as fully as he is allowed to, and I hope that on this occasion he will give as much information on this second question as he can.

THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE FOR THE ROYAL AIR FORCE (LORD SHACKLETON)

My Lords, I am bound to say that this is wholly outside the terms of the Question on the Order Paper. With the best will in the world, if the noble Earl wants this sort of information he really ought to put down a Question that relates directly to it. This is a question of the supply of British equipment and I cannot see how it fits into his Question. I am sorry.

THE EARL OF KINNOULL

I am sorry, my Lords, if misinformed the noble Lord. My question was on the support cost of this aircraft and I considered that the question I have just put was covered by that point.

To turn to the second half of my Question, the House will be aware, I am sure, that among other revolutionary designs incorporated in this aircraft is a new system of escape known as the eject-able crew module. This system has been designed to allow the pilot, at the push of a button, to abandon the aircraft. The effect of this button will he to trigger off a number of small charges aroundthe cockpit, which in turn will cause the separation of the cockpit in its entirety from the body of the aircraft. From that moment the cockpit becomes a sealed container, with the pilot, co-pilot and all the instruments comfortably inside. It is then designed to float down gently to earth with the aid of an umbrella of parachutes.

I must admit that on the face of it the theory of this system has a number of advantages over the ejector seat. For instance, it is claimed that it will allow shirt-sleeve flying environment for the crews, with a lot more comfort, where the pilots will be free from all the paraphernalia normally associated with the ejector seat. Secondly, it has been suggested that the module will operate with much greater safety than an ejector seat at high altitudes and will have the advantage of acting as a survival shelter for the crew on land or sea. It is also claimed that it will give the pilots a better chance of survival when ejecting at a combination of high speeds and low altitudes. The tremendous amount of G-force built up on deceleration in such circumstances can, of course, severely rupture human organs and lead to the ultimate death of the pilots.

All these advantages are claimed over the ejector seat, but the problem of the true assessment of these claims remains frustrated at present, for whereas the ejector seat has a record of twenty years of practical and life-saving service, in which the lives of 1,420 pilots have been saved, the module, so far, has not got further than the development stage of being fired from a rocket-driven sledge and being dropped from a B 52 aircraft, neither of which, I suggest to your Lordships, can fairly represent all the conditions of a likely emergency.

It will not surprise the noble Lord to learn that the specification of this module has been studied in some detail by the British specialists in this field, and here, of course, I refer to the Martin Baker Aircraft Company, whose ejection seat is renowned throughout the world. In the light of their considerable experience, the conclusion that has been reached is that the present specification of the module, which calls for safe ejections at all the aircraft's speeds and altitudes, cannot possibly be perfected in the short time left before this aircraft is due to go into service with the Royal Air Force. I say "in the short time left" deliberately, because for a testing programme as delicate as that for an escape system, where accuracy and thoroughness may decide the life or death of many pilots, one year in development time is a very short period indeed. What is genuinely feared is that, unless the decision on the module is reconsidered now, the time will come by mid-1967 when the noble Lord's Department will be faced with the agonising problem of accepting the aircraft into service with only a partly proved escape equipment.

It may be of interest to the noble Lord to know that a recent analysis of statistics was shown to me of all the successful and unsuccessful ejections in a Martin-Baker seat over the last few years. This information is available to the noble Lord, of course, if he wishes it afterwards. The purpose of quoting this analysis is that many of these conclusions affect the module just as much as they affect the ejection seat.

The main conclusions were as follows. First, the most likely conditions to cause fatal ejections from aircraft are a combination of low altitude and high sink rate; secondly, abandonment rarely takes place in practice above an altitude of 20,000 feet; thirdly, the majority of ejections at low altitudes take place at indicated air speeds of around 200 knots. It also may he of interest to the noble Lord to know that the recovery rate in ejections from the Martin Baker seat in 1965 stood at 92 per cent., whereas the recovery rate from the best American seat available was only 76 per cent. It may also be of interest to the noble Lord to learn of some of the doubts that have been expressed about the capability of the module. The question has been posed: How, in practice, will the module perform in low altitudes when the aircraft is in a steep dive, and would it prove better or as good as the ejection seat? Secondly, can it be guaranteed that at high speeds and low altitudes the module will be able to separate successfully from the body of the aircraft? Thirdly, has it been established that the drastic effects of deceleration will not be felt inside the module upon ejection?

The purpose of my Question to-day is not to claim that in the long run the ejection seat will always be superior to the module but to remind the noble Lord that at the present time the ejection seat is far ahead of the module, in both practice and experience. The Martin Baker seat has been in operation since 1945 and has so far saved 1,420 pilots' lives: some of them have been saved three times by the seat, and others have been saved twice within the same week.

With this great record behind the seat, is it right to abandon it at this time for the sake of an untried module in a highly advanced aircraft? The Minister, in his reply, may say that the tests on the module are progressing satisfactorily and there is no need for alarm. If this is his answer, will the Minister be prepared to give this undertaking to-day: that none of these aircraft will come into service with the Royal Air Force until a number of live ejections from the module have taken place which clearly demonstrate and prove that its capabilities live up to its specification?

5.1 p.m.

LORD KINGS NORTON

My Lords, I should also like to comment on the escape system of the F 111 aircraft. For the Americans to be satisfied with it is not enough. They were presumably satisfied with the response to their specifications for escape systems in earlier American aircraft, but in fact their ejector seats have never approached the standards as set up by the seats designed by Sir James Martin, which have become our standards. Sir James, whom I know well, is a most extraordinary man. He is one of the great engineers of our time; one of those gifted people for whom nature's laws are second nature, and his designs are masterly. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has said, they have saved the lives of over 1,400 men, and, incidentally, over 30 per cent. of those are Americans.

Two American engineers, Mr. Bradfield and Mr. Thommason, presented a paper at a conference at Houston, Texas, at the beginning of September, in which they said: In '56 Martin Baker Aircraft Company Limited completed the design of the first dual automatic ground level escape system. This system, even to-day, ten years later, maintains the highest success record of any system in use. Mr. Bradfield and Mr. Thommason go on to quote figures to prove this point which are similar to those mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. They say that the United States Navy record a success rate of 79 per cent. for American rocket assisted seats, as opposed to 90 per cent. for the standard Martin Baker seat. In other words, out of every 100 people ejected by other seats, twenty-one die, but with Martin Baker seats only ten. Sir James would say that current figures show an even greater disparity in his favour, because his latest rocket seats have rocket motors which improve upon the already stupendous Martin Baker performance.

I make these remarks because I believe that in Sir James and his organisation we have a tremendous facility for solving these ejector problems, and a tremendous asset which we should always use to the utmost. I should like to offer a suggestion to the noble Lord, the Minister, who will shortly speak. However satisfactory he may feel the American solution for escape from the F 111 aircraft is likely to be, it would surely be prudent, against the background which the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and I have sketched, to have an insurance policy. I suggest, with respect, that he should arrange for a contract to be given to the Martin Baker Company to design their solution to the problem of escape from this aeroplane. If this were done, I would suggest further that it might be possible thereafter to test the American and the Martin Baker systems for the F 111 under the same conditions, and the system demonstrated to be superior should be adopted for our F 111s.

5.5 p.m.

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, we have, as always, had a persuasive and well-informed speech from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and I should like to echo his expression of goodwill, tempered, T must say, with some regret that, while I fully agree with his commendation of the Martin Baker ejection seat as an outstanding example of British initiative and design, I really cannot accept the substance of his case as regards the F 111. I should like to make it clear that this is in no way a reflection on the Martin Baker Company, and least of all on Sir James Martin, to whom so many flyers owe their lives and whose great achievement has been not so long ago recognised. I should like to make it clear, also, that there is no suggestion of any rejection of his particular achievement or the quality of his engineering.

I wish first to put the matter in context. The new American escape module is not peculiar to the F 11ls that the R.A.F. are to have. It is, in fact, being developed for the many hundreds of F 111s which the United States Air Force are going to purchase. We had, therefore, to decide whether in this particular respect the F 111 did not meet our requirements. Apart from the implications in terms of cost and time of requiring ejection seats to be specially fitted to our small order of 50 aircraft—and I stress that we are talking about a relatively small order—the key factors to be considered were the module specification and the likelihood that the development programme would be successful. It is at this point that, perhaps with the advantage of greater knowledge, if not direct knowledge (and I am not sure that my own personal knowledge of the module or the aircraft would effectively replace it), the advice that I get from my expert advisers is to query whether this development programme would be successful. We are watching this very closely.

I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton. that one would greatly respect the views of Sir James Martin. But I would suggest—although there may be those who on occasion think that the Air Staff do not always get things right—that this is a matter of such importance that it has been very closely watched, and we are monitoring the programme. It is going well, and a performance at least as satisfactory as that of any ejection system can be, according to my advice—and I have gone into this matter pretty deeply—is to be expected long before the Royal Air Force take delivery of their first F 111 s in December. 1968. In these circumstances, we see no reason to reconsider our decision to accept the escape system which the United States Air Force have specified. We are interested to see that this new concept should be developed.

Let me explain the two systems in more detail, because, as on so many of these matters, it is the technical detail that is decisive. When a pilot uses an ejection seat—and again I fully acknowledge the value of the latest prototypes of the Martin Baker Company—to escape from his aircraft in emergency, he is exposed immediately to the outside environment. This can, depending on the circumstances, be a very hostile environment indeed. In the worst case this could be at high speed, at high altitude, over a cold and possibly a stormy sea. He must therefore carry adequate clothing for protection against air blast and immersion in cold sea (I do not know whether the noble Earl has ever worn an immersion suit, but it is not the most comfortable thing), a restraint system to prevent his limbs flailing when he meets the air blast; an emergency oxygen supply to sustain him until he reaches a lower altitude; an elaborate helmet and oxygen mask assembly designed to withstand air blast; a life raft and survival equipment, and a personal locator beacon. All this has to be done on the individual.

The capsule, on the other hand, comprises the whole of the pressurised cockpit, and escape in this way allows an airman to remain in the same environment throughout the descent, with full protection against blast, and it is, furthermore, a lifeboat or shelter as well. It offers space in which emergency oxygen and other supplies can be stored without being attached to the person, thus simplifying any flying clothing and equipment which must be worn, thereby increasing crew comfort, and therefore reducing crew fatigue, which is important in view of the long hours that can be spent in these aircraft, even in normal operations.

THE EARL OF KINNOULL

My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? I think he is describing the capsule. These are conditions where it lands satisfactorily, and is not damaged; but in adverse conditions possibly the capsule could be damaged.

LORD SHACKLETON

If the noble Earl will allow me to continue, there is a judgment of balance of risks and advantage in this, and I am putting the case as we see it in the Air Force Department. Where, of course, there are two crew members, as in the F 111, both leave the aircraft together, and this avoids problems of ejection sequence for which fully satisfactory solutions have still to be developed for the ejection seat system. In principle therefore—and I do not think any noble Lord will disagree with this—the capsule concept is a step forward from the ejection seat system, which becomes increasingly hazardous over the speed of 450 knots. Indeed, I would say that the ejection seat is approaching the end of its development potential. In the case of the F 111, the specification calls for safe ejection at all the aircraft's speeds and altitudes, including under-water escape from 30 ft. (which may or may not be of great importance) and the capsule is to provide a survival shelter for up to three days on land or at sea.

The noble Lord made play of the fact that the ejection seat has served us well for a number of years; and I fully agree. But there is some argument in favour of progress. There are safer ways of travelling around at the moment than in high-speed supersonic aircraft. In the last resort you can go by railway train, although the hour of arrival may be slightly uncertain, if I heard the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, aright on the B.B.C. the other night.

LORD BOOTHBY

My Lords, we are now approaching Christmas. Could the noble Lord be slightly less gloomy?

LORD SHACKLETON

I was endeavouring to lighten the atmosphere by referring to the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, which I thought was certain to raise some hilarity. But the noble Earl raised his Question as a serious one, and I think it is up to me to answer it seriously. Until the trial programme is completed about the middle of next year, on the present timetable, it will not be possible to give an absolutely final answer as to the realistic nature of that programme. At this stage my own description would have been "ambitious." I would remind the noble Earl that the equipment is being developed by the company (MacDonnell) who are responsible for the United States Mercury space capsule. I would also say that the development of the capsule has reached a stage where its performance has already been proven almost to the same limits as ejection seats, and this gives us some real grounds for confidence.

The noble Lord referred to the question of ejection at high speeds and high altitudes, and he said that these are rare. I should not have thought, however, that this was an argument against further progress, and if technological advance offers us an opportunity to provide an escape system that will operate successfully throughout the full spectrum of the aircraft's flight envelope, we should encourage its development. Here again, I would suggest to the noble Lord that these statistics which he has quoted, and which I freely acknowledge, are based almost, though perhaps not entirely, on peace-time operations, and they are no guide to what is needed against the risk of hostile encounters at high speed and altitude.

THE EARL OF KINNOULL

They are based on Vietnam, as well.

LORD SHACKLETON

To find supersonic aircraft operating in those conditions is very rare indeed; and even when they do it is a comparatively small number. I should have hoped that we were right to look ahead to improve techniques. Indeed, as long ago as 1962 the British Naval and Air Staff formulated a staff target for an escape capsule for advanced aircraft, and the Americans have now introduced this concept into the F 111. There are no grounds known to me why we should take the view either that they are wrong in principle to do so or that the development progress of the capsule is such that it will not give at least as good a performance as we could get from an ejection seat.

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, I wonder whether I might ask a question. The noble Lord referred to performance at high speeds. I am sure there is some worry about the performance close to zero height and zero speed. Obviously, one does not want an ejection at zero height or zero speed, but at low speed and low altitude. Could the noble Lord say something more reassuring about that?

LORD SHACKLETON

I would say to the noble Lord, who used this curious jargon with which he was wrestling, and with which we all have to wrestle, that a zero-zero ejection is a definite possibity—in other words, at no speed and on the ground.

LORD ST. OSWALD

But it is a rare thing.

LORD SHACKLETON

I am not so sure, and I think one of the great difficulties we have had recently in relation to the Martin Baker seat is safety of ejection if possible on the ground, with the aircraft moving on an abortive takeoff, which in certain circumstances may well require ejection. We are confident that it will meet the zero-zero requirement. I am grateful to the noble Lord, because this is important. It is our view that it will meet all these vital low-level requirements and give an added advantage in the more extreme conditions of great height and supersonic flight, particularly in circumstances where an ejection may be required almost at a split second.

LORD BOOTHBY

Did the noble Lord say "ejection" or "injection"?

LORD SHACKLETON

If the noble Lord will continue to keep his merriment over Christmas, what I said was "ejection"; and if I did not, that is what I meant to say. The Americans have now introduced this concept and, as I say, we hope that we shall get as good a performance as we got from the present ejection seat in comparable circumstances, and better in others.

These are matters of great importance to the Royal Air Force, and the last thing I would do—and I stress this again—would be to discount the very real achievements of the ejection seat, which is a British development of quite outstanding value, both to this country and to the world. The capsule which is now being developed gives us a chance to move forward. I assure your Lordships—and one is always nervous about the possibility of being wrong in anything with regard to aircraft equipment—that we have looked into this matter most carefully, but for the reasons I have mentioned we do not consider there are any grounds for accepting that the R.A.F. F Ills should not have the escape features currently proposed in the design of the basic F 111 aircraft.

In regard to the question of consulting Sir James Martin, certainly the noble Lord has in fact indicated some of Sir James Martin's views and, speaking for myself, and indeed for the Air Force Department, we should be willing to listen to any observations he may care to make, but I can only repeat that we ourselves have a great deal of experience of ejection seats, and this is something to which we have devoted careful attention.

Let me now turn to the other part—

THE EARL OF KINNOULL

My Lords, before the noble Lord does that, could he perhaps mention the final point of my speech, whether in fact he would give an undertaking that a live ejection from this module would be made before it went into service with the Royal Air Force?

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, I believe that in his original remarks the noble Earl referred to "a number of live ejections". I do not think I can give an undertaking of this sort. I do not doubt that this is being tested fully and that there will be such live ejections, but clearly this is a matter on which we shall have to exercise the best judgment we can bring to bear.

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, before the noble Lord passes to another matter, I should like to say that the reassurances he has given are welcome and, coming from him, impressive. There are, however, one or two questions which I though he might be answering in the course of his speech, and therefore I did not put down my name to speak. First, I understand that the apparatus is heavy; that is to say, it adds to the weight as well as to the expense of the aircraft itself, and I should have thought the weight must increase the problems of handling and range. I wonder whether this is so.

There is also the problem, which no doubt has been overcome, of the separation of the control connections—the wiring, the cables and so on. I am not intentionally springing this as a surprise on the noble Lord because I know how well informed on technical matters he is, but there are problems associated with spinning in the air which are not associated with an ejection seat; and also there is, I am told, a greater bang at high speeds than with the individual ejection seat. I am quite prepared to hear that these factors are, as the noble Lord said, balanced against other advantages, but I should like to know whether he can say something reassuring on those points.

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, I am gratified by the noble Lord's confidence in my ability to answer technical questions off the cuff. When he said a "greater bang", I presume he meant that the individual goes out with greater force and there is increased G as a result of it. There are certain technical difficulties, especially in the trans-sonic area, in an ejection with this capsule owing to the aerodynamic effects of the capsule. This is one of the problems that is in process of being overcome in the development stage. I do not know about the problem of spinning. I have not heard of this one, but I will let the noble Lord know. I should have thought that there were no insuperable difficulties in overcoming this.

LORD KINGS NORTON

My Lords, I just want to emphasise two points. First of all, I was not arguing against the capsule but in favour of an insurance policy. Secondly, most noble Lords have spoken as if this were a case of module versus ejector seat. Again, that was not in my mind. I should hope it would be possible to invite the Martin-Baker Company to design (if they think it is the best solution) a module, having in mind that with their relatively limited facilities but extremely high I.Q., they have in the past defeated the best efforts of the best American designers in this field, even though the latter have vast resources.

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, I fully take the noble Lord's point, and there is nothing we should have liked better. But I must stress two things. First, the module is an integral part of the aircraft to a greater extent than an ejection seat and, secondly, the cost really would be prohibitive. One of the difficulties with the F 111 purchase is that it is a comparatively small one and we have not therefore been able to get nearly as much British equipment into it because it would have added greatly to the cost. I mentioned in our previous debate that there are certain increases in cost as a result of certain alterations made to the aircraft, both to meet the British specification and to some extent to meet British suppliers. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, that it is simply "not on". The cost of developing this would be enormous and at the moment it is being spread by the Americans over this huge number of F 111s.

I should now like to turn to the first part of the noble Earl's Question, and I was going to say that now that the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, has gone, I can make a slightly grimmer remark, but perhaps he is not attending at the moment. However, I think the noble Earl has pulled a slightly fast one by putting in this further question quite unrelated to the original Question, at two day's notice. I do not say this in an offensive way. I should have thought that if he wanted to deal with the second point it would have been better to deal with it as a separate question, but I will answer the point as best I can.

First of all, he said we bought this aircraft off the drawing-board. In fact, at the time we ordered it there were twelve flying, and I think this is a point worth stressing. Therefore I think he was a little unfair in saying we had just bought it off the drawing-board. The noble Earl also asked whether we would encourage British firms—this is all quite separate from his original question on the ejection seat—to manufacture electronic spares for our F Ills. I do not know whether he really thinks it is economic for them to set up separate production lines for British copies of United States spares for our small number of aircraft. I should have thought it was inherent in the whole policy that has been explained that it is better to draw spares from the large United States production at the same price and priority as the United States Air Force; but if he has in mind any particular item I shall be glad to look at it, and so, I am sure, would the Ministry of Aviation—or rather, it will be the Ministry of Technology.

The noble Lord asked a question about the automatic test equipment for the F 111 Avionics. This is another googly. I am not protesting because I rather like trying to play googlies. I can say that the question of whether suitable British equipment should be developed for this purpose is being looked at urgently at the present time by the Ministry of Aviation and the Ministry of Defence, and subject to the problems of time scale and cost we should naturally prefer to buy British equipment, but at this stage I cannot forecast what our position will be. At least I have gone some way towards meeting the noble Earl.

THE EARL OF K INNOULL

My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for going as far as he has gone, I think it has been a surprise to many of the manufacturers that they have not even been given a specification for this equipment, let alone been approached.

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, I note what the noble Earl has said. If he wants to give me any details of what is involved in this I will certainly look into it, but we should wish in relation to time and cost to have British equipment.

The noble Earl asked a question on whether we intended to negotiate a fixed contract for support costs. A re-reading of the Official Record of our previous debate on May 12 would suggest to me that the noble Earl understands the position exceedingly well. Indeed, on that occasion he appeared to regard the matter as satisfactory. The noble Earl certainly did not query the arrangements which we have with the United States authority under which, through their Co-operative Logistic Systems, we can get spares at the same price as the United States Air Force do. Indeed this arrangement, as does the noble Earl's Question—though I am not sure whether he intended this—goes further than the supply of spare parts; it allows us to enjoy also the same benefits in respect of modification kits, repair and overhaul services and engineering support.

And now, after several months of further contemplation, perhaps rather as an afterthought, since it was only added to the Paper, the noble Lord has raised a question; I was not quite sure whether he wanted to change all that and go for a fixed price contract over this very disparate field of support. I am assuming he only wants information; I do not think he can seriously consider we want fixed contracts, because we have this very satisfactory arrangement. The noble Earl may have doubts and even a change of heart on this matter, but I can assure him that in this matter Her Majesty's Government have not changed their minds. To be able to get spares and, if we want them, these other items also for the F 111, as for the C 130 and the Phantom, at the same price and priority as the United States Air Force is, to my mind, a very good bargain indeed, and we have no intention of changing what is not only a financially sound but an essentially equitable arrangement between allies and bringing up any question of a fixed price contract.

THE EARL OF KINNOULL

The point I also raised in my speech was this question of the cost of modifications of what I believe is now known as F 111 C, and on May 12 the noble Lord said that he was going to agree upon a fixed price for those modifications. Can he advise us on this point?

LORD SHACKLETON

I really think that the noble Earl is—I hesitate to use the word—abusing the custom of the House, for this is wildly outside the Question on the Order Paper and I should prefer to leave it. If he wants this sort of information, may I beg him to put down Questions on the subjects on which he wants answers?