§ Lord BachMy right honourable friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr Adam Ingram) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
20WSI am pleased to be able to announce that we will be buying 64 Tomahawk land attack missiles from the United States under the terms of a foreign military sales case. These are conventionally armed land attack missiles. These new missiles will be to higher—block IV—specification than our existing block III missiles. As such, they will provide the ability to retarget or abort a mission in-flight and will also provide battle damage indication. They will be capable of being fired from our current Trafalgar class submarines as well as from our new Astute class submarines when they enter service.
This decision shows our continued commitment to enabling precision attack at long range against selected targets.