§ Sir Ian GilmourTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence on what grounds he has made payments to Leyland Dal, in connection with DROPS, additional to contract; when these payments were made; if he plans to make further such payments; in what form, and in favour of which company, these payments were made; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. SainsburyFollowing experience from the validation trials, the Ministry of Defence decided to combine features from the evaluation truck and the validation truck in finalising the production build standard for the medium mobility vehicles. Appropriate amendments were therefore made to the contract and payments were authorised to Leyland Daf reflecting these amendments. These payments were contained within the original approved programme limits. No further such amendments for DROPS equipments are envisaged.
§ Sir Ian GilmourTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what representations he has received from Leyland Daf on errors in the DROPS requirements as originally framed by EASAMS; what assessment he has made of the implications for defence procurement of these errors; to what extent companies competed against standards outwith the formal requirements; if he plans to seek to recover from EASAMS sums paid to Leyland Daf for rectification of the problems caused by these errors; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. SainsburyThere have been no such representations from Leyland Daf. Companies competed against target figures laid down by the Ministry of Defence, not EASAMS Ltd. who were employed in the role of management support only. The statement of requirement made clear to the competing companies that these targets would be difficult to meet in combination and that trade-offs between parameters would be allowed.