Kevan Jones
Main Page: Kevan Jones (Labour - North Durham)Department Debates - View all Kevan Jones's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I have asked to look again at that and some of the rebasing options.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for Defence Procurement for his letter on the Navy’s special purpose vehicle and the changes he has made to the procurement process, but that will not get us away from the fact that the money has to be spent by March, which means that the vessel will be built or procured from a Dutch company, Damen. Why is he not backing British industry? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) said, this is a £10 million contract that will go to a Dutch yard, rather than be spent in the UK.
Jeremy Quin
The right hon. Gentleman has already decided how our competition will end, which is unwise. We have multiple potential providers of a vessel that needs already to have been built, so we are going through a buying process and we will see how that procurement exercise ends.