Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what plans his Department has to ensure that the preferred bidder for the general service respirator provides assurance of the quality of the (a) acquisition of tooling for that product, (b) building and testing of assembly lines and production runs for that product, (c) testing of that product at Porton Down and (d) testing of that product by service personnel so that those personnel have confidence in those products.

The Ministry of Defence will undertake full testing of the preferred bidder's proposal for General Service Respirators to ensure that manufacture, testing, supply, performance and quality standards match those of the current in-service equipment. This will include a range of measures to test all hybrid combinations to ensure that Armed Forces personnel are provided with the best equipment that is fit for purpose.