§ Mr. Bowen Wellsasked the Secretary of State for Defence what consultations his officials had with representatives of the Irish Army who had in use the DROPS equipment manufactured by T. T. Boughton Ltd. before excluding it from trials for the British armed forces contract.
§ Mr. LeeNone. I understand the Irish Army vehicle was used in substantially different roles to that envisaged for the British Army's DROPS requirements.
§ Mr. Bowen Wellsasked the Secretary of State for Defence when he hopes to make a decision on the DROPS contract.
§ Mr. Bowen Wellsasked the Secretary of State for Defence what approximate value he estimates is to be placed on the DROPS contract for the British armed forces.
§ Mr. LeeThe main DROPS production contract has not yet been placed and is still subject to competitive tendering. Overall the DROPS programme costs are expected to be of the order of £250 million.
§ Mr. Bowen Wellsasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will publish correspondence between his hon. Friend the Member for Chertsey (Mr. Pattie) and T. T. Boughton Ltd. on 22 May 1984.
§ Mr. LeeI have no plans to do so. It is not our practice to publish departmental correspondence of a commercially confidential nature.
§ Mr. Bowen Wellsasked the Secretary of State for Defence what were the qualifications of the consultants who were employed to evaluate the DROPS proposals; and what was the extent of their experience in vehicle evaluation.
§ Mr. LeeEASAMS Ltd. provided management consultancy support in the DROPS competition to the 491W Department's procurement staff, who retained responsibility throughout for the direction of the work and all decisions. EASAMS had undertaken a variety of assignments previously for the Department, including in particular ones related to the services' logistic task and vehicle requirements. They had no commercial links with the competing firms or the industry generally.
§ Mr. Bowen Wellsasked the Secretary of State for Defence why T.T. Boughton Ltd. was excluded from the trial for the contract for DROPS equipment.
§ Mr. LeeCompetitive proposals for DROPS main contractorship were submitted by 11 firms: six of them were eliminated in the first stage of the competition evaluation. Messrs Boughtons succeeded in reaching the final short list. Subsequently their proposals and those of two other competing firms were judged to have less merit than those of the two contractors selected to provide equipment for the subsequent trials and evaluations.
§ Mr. Bowen Wellsasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will now set up an inquiry into the exclusion of certain companies from the trial for DROPS.
§ Mr. LeeNo. Defence Ministers and senior officials have undertaken a thorough examination of complaints and assertions about the DROPS competition over the last three years. On each occasion the inquiries have failed to provide any evidence that the equipments proposed were not given every consideration or that the choice of equipment to take part in the subsequent competition trials was not made fairly and competently.