HC Deb 11 November 1998 vol 319 cc187-8W
Mr. Brake

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list the steps taken to establish that no conflict of interest arose as a result of the Chairman of the DERA audit of Swanwick being also Chairman of EHI and Megitt. [58220]

Dr. Reid

[holding answer 3 November 1998]: Before his appointment in June as Chairman of the DERA Audit, Sir Donald Spiers told my Department about those companies with which he was then involved and which had a connection with Lockheed Martin, namely EHI and Meggitt.

EHI is a trading company concerned with the provision of the EH101 helicopter. The MOD selected this helicopter for a Royal Navy role, and then separately selected Lockheed Martin to provide systems for it. Meggitt has a contract to supply military aircraft parts to a different part of the Lockheed Martin organisation from that which is working on the Swanwick centre.

We have also examined Sir Donald's involvement with Siemens Plessey Electronic Systems (SPES). Sir Donald ceased to be a non-executive director of SPES some two months before undertaking the DERA audit, and was unaware of the links between SPES and Lockheed Martin since he was concerned only with the defence interests of SPES.

We are satisfied that these links do not give rise to a conflict of interest with Sir Donald's chairmanship of the DERA audit.