Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Dunne)]

Further to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s answer to an earlier question, I can confirm that—as it happens, yesterday—I witnessed a contract signature for the investment of a further £165 million to integrate Brimstone precision munitions on to Royal Air Force Typhoons, which will enable this unique air-to-ground strike capability to enter service on our Typhoon fleet in 2018, before the Tornadoes come out of service in 2019.

[Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)]

T8. What assurance can the Minister give that the costs of the new Type 26 global combat ship will not rise ever upwards? How much clout does his Department have in avoiding some of the mistakes of the past?

[Mr Dunne]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking that question, because he invites me to draw another comparison with the way in which this Government have sorted out the manner of our defence procurement, in stark contrast to the previous Administration. We are undertaking detailed analysis and taking contract negotiations to a much greater degree of granularity before entering contracts so that we know what we are buying and we remove risk from layers of prime contractors, following the model that we introduced in the aircraft carrier renegotiation last year.