Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Howarth]

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for that extremely helpful and gallant question. If I may say so, looking at the shadow Secretary of State, that was a scheme set up by the current Opposition, who were then in government. It was a three-year scheme. They believed in performance-related pay and so do we.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

There is a belief in industry that we will lose at least 30,000 jobs in the defence sector over the coming period. Although people in that sector applaud the Government’s stated export support, they fear that it has no substance if it is not backed up by a strategy, no matter what title the Government choose to use for that. There is not a free market. If the Government do not develop some kind of defence strategy, other nations will gain at our expense, as they are potentially doing in India with a product inferior to that which we have to offer. Will the Government think about the need for some kind of defence strategy, which they clearly do not have, despite what they say?

[Mr Howarth]

It is pretty rich for a former Labour Secretary of State for Defence to criticise us when his Government did not have a defence review for 13 years. We have undertaken that defence review and indicated that we have a strong policy of support to industry. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), has set out his White Paper in which we support British industry. This Government, led by the Prime Minister, have done more than any previous Labour Government to support British defence exports. That is a strategy. The 16 visits that I have made overseas are beginning to bear results. Just to give one example, BAE has sold three offshore patrol vessels to Brazil.