Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to help ensure that NLAW anti-tank missile stocks will be replenished in early 2023.
Answered by Alex Chalk
To replenish the Next Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapon (NLAW) systems granted to Ukraine, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) secured around 500 units which will be delivered to the UK in 2023. The MOD has subsequently placed a separate contract for several thousand units to be delivered to the UK between 2024-2026.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the Written Statement of 16 November, HCWS369, on Shipbuilding Update, who the prime contractor for the Fleet Solid Support Ships will be; and what estimate he has made of the balance of work between the shipyards involved.
Answered by Alex Chalk
Team Resolute, a team consisting of Harland & Wolff, BMT and Navantia UK has been announced as the Preferred Bidder to build the Fleet Solid Support ships. Navantia UK, a UK registered company, will hold the contract as prime contractor.
The majority of the shipbuild will take place in the UK. The precise balance of work between each individual yard is a matter for Harland & Wolff.
No workers are currently employed in building the Fleet Solid Support ships by Harland & Wolff at any of its sites. No contract has yet been signed for the ships. Harland & Wolff has indicated that it expects the workforce employed to build the ships to grow by around 1,200.
The number of people employed by BMT in the competition for the Fleet Solid Support ships is purely a matter for the company. BMT has indicated that it expects its workforce engaged to deliver the Fleet Solid Support ships to grow to around 120.
The number of jobs sustained in Spain to deliver the Fleet Solid Support ships is a matter for the contractor concerned but it will be fewer than the number of jobs sustained and created in the UK.
The transfer of technology and skills from Navantia to the UK shipbuilding industry that the Fleet Solid Support ship programme will facilitate includes provision for a team of Spanish shipbuilding experts to be resident within Harland & Wolff in order to upskill local staff to deliver the construction in the UK and ensure build productivity and quality levels are met.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the (a) effectiveness, (b) health and safety and (c) comfort of the current standard of military body armour.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
VIRTUS is the current military body armour used by personnel across Defence.
Military body armour is designed to improve the wearer’s survivability by protecting them from a variety of blast and fragmentation threats; but it also must be balanced against the wider system requirements – specifically mobility and lethality. Combat effectiveness is measured by the overall interaction between protection, mobility, and firepower.
The current military body armour (VIRTUS) has been developed with DSTL and assessed against industry standards. It was developed to address previously identified capability gaps. It was subjected to field and lab trials testing which concluded that the VIRTUS system increased agility and overall performance..
Military body armour (VIRTUS) complies with current UK Health and Safety at Work legal requirements and meets all other legal and Ministry of Defence obligations.
The current in service body armour (VIRTUS) was consistently rated more favourably in respect of comfort than the other systems in the majority of questions during initial trials, and subjective evaluations relating to usability and functionality were predominately positive. Defence is constantly seeking to refine the capability, and has recently developed a wider variety of body armour accessories for those with smaller statures.