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6.32 pm

Mr. Keith Mans (Wyre): It is a great pleasure to speak in this annual debate on the RAF which, this year, has come a little earlier than on previous occasions. I hope that the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) will not mind if I do not follow him too far down the route that he chose. However, I and others who have served as aircrew in the past sympathise with the families concerned, and know how they must feel. Split-second decisions or losses of concentration--if that is what happened--can have such results. It shows more than anything that when we operate aircraft of that sort, the pilots must be as well trained as possible and their equipment must be as serviceable as possible. I shall return to that subject, as it has some relevance to that tragic Chinook accident. As the hon. Member for Clackmannan said, we shall never know the final facts of the incident.

This past year has been one of great change for the RAF, and I should like to add my comments to those of earlier speakers on the death of Sir Frank Whittle. Like myself, he was a cadet at Cranwell--although he was there long before me. I well remember learning what he achieved in 1929, when he patented the idea of the jet engine. He then saw it fly from Cranwell some 12 years later. I remember looking at the cut sections of the engines in the engineering section at Cranwell and being fascinated by the simplicity of the principle of the jet engine. It must have taken a man of genius to understand the power that could be produced from such a simple proposition.

I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin) said about the present Chief of the Air Staff. Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon has taken the RAF through a difficult period, and has done so with skill and dedication. It was difficult, because the changes were not supported by huge numbers of the forces that he led. The fact that he has achieved that while keeping the Air Force together, and the fact that it is still a superb fighting machine, is of great credit to him, and he can retire knowing that.

We in the House are very good at taking credit for things, and I noticed that the hon. Member for Warley, West (Mr. Spellar), leading for the Opposition, mentioned the defence orders. He was perfectly right to say that Labour supported those orders, as did many of my right hon. and hon. Friends. But the real credit goes to the Chief of the Air Staff and his staff, who constantly made the point which, in the end, was accepted by everybody--that one cannot expect the RAF to go through a reduction process, unless one gives it hope for the future by ensuring that it has the equipment to do the job into the next century. Sir Michael Graydon did that, and he should be proud of his great achievement.

Those equipment orders have given the RAF hope for the future, and I am delighted by them. They will provide work for many people in Lancashire--including some of my constituents--and they will ensure that the RAF remains a formidable fighting force into the next century. However, there are obviously other orders and procurement decisions that must be taken in the future.

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We need to ensure that there is a good weapons system on the Eurofighter, and I hope that a decision on the future air-to-air missile will be made this year--the sooner the better, as far as I am concerned. The Meteor proposal from the British Aerospace consortium should be strongly considered.

The other area that is important is heavy lift, and I should like the Government to sign at the earliest possible opportunity the European staff requirement in the future large aircraft consortium. That is not to say at this stage that that is necessarily the aircraft that the RAF should buy--far from it. There are many ways in which we could meet that need, but it is a need that must be met. We need a heavy lift capability on this side of the Atlantic, and we need it as soon as possible.

I am encouraged by the lateral thinking that has taken place about the proposal and by some of the ideas that have been put before the Select Committee on Defence, on which I serve with my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Waterside. Leasing is a possibility, and we could certainly use a more commercial way to procure the aircraft. One of the interesting things about the discussion on the C130J two or three years ago was that it led to the FLA consortium realising that it had to look again at the way in which it was putting its bid together, to ensure that it was done under the commercial auspices of Airbus. We could also use techniques that allow for a shorter time scale.

The A340, probably the most advanced airliner ever built, went from drawing board to airline service in less than four years. That is how we must proceed, channelling people's minds and ensuring that those in Ministry of Defence procurement, for example, do not constantly make changes to the design specification; they must decide what they want and get it built, and there should be penalty clauses that operate if it does not come up to the specification that was clearly made in the first place, so that the companies involved understand that it must be made to work as Airbus so effectively made both the A330 and the A340 work, within the time scale and to the performance specified by the airlines.

We must examine closely the way in which we are to procure heavy lift capability for the Royal Air Force. In the short term, we should at least be involved in the future large aircraft programme through the signing of the European staff requirement. As far as I can see, there is no downside to signing it: it does not commit us to anything, but merely ensures that we still have a seat at the table--I do not intend to take that analogy any further.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) intervened on the subject of the Bulldog replacement. Clearly, value for money--not necessarily the cheapest price, I hasten to add--must drive that project forward. There are considerable advantages in that respect in having one basic trainer for all pilots coming into the Air Force, whether they come through university cadetship or arrive direct from school and go to the flying school at present operated by the Hunting Company at Barkston Heath.

I am sure that when instructors move on to the Tucano, they can understand the slight differences in ability, but I have a gut feeling that there will be a slight advantage, when it comes to the next stage in assessing abilities, if everyone is started off on the same aircraft. There should

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also be some saving, which may not be as tangible as it should be, in terms of back-up, standardisation of spares and other matters associated with supporting aircraft.

Most people would expect me to mention the Eurofighter. It is important, not only because the Air Force needs it in the next century to be able to stay at the top table with the American and other air forces, but because it will provide the platform, or at least the technology, for further developments. The French, sadly, are not in the project, but I wonder whether developments from Eurofighter will not find themselves in service with the French air force as well as ours in five or 10 years' time. I shall leave it at that. We need that aircraft.

There were some boisterous exchanges earlier this afternoon about the different parties' views. All I can say to the hon. Member for Warley, West is that, if I were sitting on the Opposition Benches, I should be saying precisely the same things to my Front-Bench colleagues as I said to him earlier tonight. The only way of ensuring that the aircraft goes ahead and that our allies have confidence that we back it fully is by saying that it is fine to have a defence review, but that the Eurofighter must not be in it.

Once we have that guarantee, I shall be extremely happy, not because an Opposition politician has agreed with the Government, but because the Air Force can then have confidence that that programme at least will not be affected by anything that happens at the general election.

Ballistic missile defence has been mentioned. It is highly commendable that I first heard about ballistic missile defence, about eight years ago, not through the media or from the Ministry of Defence, but in the Chamber. I well remember the response from the Front Bench: it was almost as if one or two eccentric Back Benchers had mentioned something out of "Star Wars". That illustrates the fact that there is still knowledge in the Chamber that is often ahead of what is going on in government or in the media. It is most encouraging that the subject is being taken so much more seriously today than it was all those years ago.

My hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Waterside mentioned the technology foresight programme. When we consider new technologies in the future, we must not regard them purely in a defence or commercial sense. We must form partnerships of the kind that have been so useful in America recently and have driven technology forward.

We must understand that the majority of the technologies that we use in our defensive systems will in future probably come from commercial rather than military research. Commercial time scales are shorter. Indeed, one could argue that, because of the stretched-out time scale, some of the Eurofighter and EJ200 technology is behind the latest technology in the Rolls-Royce Trent engine.

I believe that in future military technology will be driven much more by commercial technology. That must be recognised by the Department of Trade and Industry as well as by the Ministry of Defence. I hope that a better partnership can be developed between those Departments, so that we can drive sufficient resources into programmes such as the powered wing, which have both commercial and military benefits, but which will not go ahead in this country unless the Departments get closer together. They must think more clearly about projects that can bring such benefits in terms of jobs and wealth creation.

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Many hon. Members have mentioned the number of redundancies in the Royal Air Force and the fact that the process has gone smoothly. One should also remember that some of the people remaining in the Air Force wanted to leave and that those who remain have to deal with the problems that exist as a result of the others going. Gaps are created and people have to work harder to fill those gaps. Those who remain have in many ways the harder job.

What I say next may not be very popular. When considering redundancies, I think that it might be a good idea if one or two more senior RAF officers left sooner rather than later, to avoid creating a steep pyramid or church steeple at the top of the Royal Air Force and running the risk of losing tomorrow's leaders because we are hanging on for too long to today's. The problem is that the numbers of air vice-marshals and air marshals are almost equal. That poses a problem for people immediately below that rank.

We also need to ensure that we keep a pool of skilled technicians and engineers. Contractorisation is fine, provided that we recognise that the figures that are coming out of the programme are one-off figures. They rely on a supply of highly skilled manpower leaving the Royal Air Force which can be picked up easily by the companies that do the jobs previously done by uniformed airmen. That cannot go on for ever. We must develop partnerships between those companies and the Royal Air Force to ensure that when contracts come up for renewal, the cost does not go up by 15 per cent. or even double. There must be a clear guarantee that we have not simply pushed into the future the costs of the savings that we are making now. I think that that can be achieved. The companies to which I have spoken recognise that and are keen to produce a solution.

While I support contractorisation and novel methods, I am a gradualist. Things should be done slowly, especially in the armed forces, which have an important role. It can be matter of life and death. Where we can, we must avoid rapid changes of emphasis or policy that can affect the ability of the services to do their jobs. That is especially relevant to the RAF. I urge the Minister to consider carefully any novel ways of, for example, servicing and supporting the Eurofighter. Let us get right the contractual arrangements in respect of the things for which they are at present employed. In future, we might examine the innovative and creative ideas that sometimes come from people outside the Royal Air Force.

I recommend that my hon. Friend the Minister look closely at the problems that have occurred in the defence medical services, and especially the Royal Air Force section, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Waterside, the Chairman of the Defence Committee. The Committee is considering that and it would be wrong of me to pre-empt our conclusions. However, it is already clear that something must be done quickly to stop the defence medical services becoming a shadow of its former self. We must examine whether some of the problems with things that have not gone as well as had been anticipated can be read across to other matters, so that we approach such ideas a little more slowly.

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That approach applies equally to the dramatic changes in pilot training. My hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces rightly replied to an inquiry about the effects of contractorisation on pilot training at places such as RAF Valley that there were no signs that anything was wrong and that things were going very well. I should have directed my concern at the number of changes that have taken place in the flying training system and the fact that all advanced and weapon training for fast jet pilots has been squashed into RAF Valley. There is no flexibility and it would not take much to go wrong for there to be dire results. We must monitor closely what happens, to ensure that we do not have to spend more money further downstream, when pilots and aircrew arrive at their squadrons, to make up for any shortfall in their ability. We should avoid further changes until we have decided whether any corrections need to be made to present arrangements.

On keeping a pool of skilled technicians and experienced aircrew, the Royal Air Force seems to have little trouble recruiting and can retain, generally, the number of aircrew that it needs. However, the latest figure for the trained strength of the Royal Air Force is slightly below the required figure. That leads me to believe that matters will not get easier. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will consider carefully what the Royal Navy has had to do to retain its Sea Harrier pilots. I believe that they are being paid £10,000 to stay on. He should recognise that there is a huge imbalance between the relatively small Royal Air Force and the large civilian airline community. It would take only a small increase in the requirements of the latter to have a dramatic effect on the number of pilots in the former. We must tackle that problem before it happens rather than waiting for it to happen and having to use crisis solutions, which may not be as effective and which are certainly much more expensive.

I should like to mention the reserves. Like many hon. Members, I welcome the appointment at the Ministry of Defence of Brigadier Richard Holmes to look after the reserve forces. It is an excellent move. We are at least moving in the right direction on that, by recognising the increased importance of the reserve forces in the overall defence environment. Sometimes I feel that many who have spent their careers as Regular service men do not fully comprehend the differences between what they do and what happens in the reserves. I should declare an interest as an RAF reservist and a pilot. I am pleased also, because I remember that my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) made the point decades ago. It long fell on deaf ears and I am delighted for him that it is finally happening. I am certain that it will be a dramatic success.

The Air Cadet Force is part of the reserve movement, and I am slightly worried about it. During the defence cost studies, the air cadet movement felt that it was reviewed. The money spent on it was reduced; youngsters got fewer air experience flights; responsibility for it was split; the Air Officer Commanding disappeared; its aircraft joined another part of the command structure. I understand that there is to be a further review, largely because of the changes that have occurred in the Royal Air Force. I realise that it is important to look at who is responsible for cadet squadrons when there are fewer stations. Having said that, I hope that there is no hidden agenda. I hope that the review is aimed at increasing the

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size and effectiveness of the air cadet movement and not designed to reduce costs, so that some RAF officers can spend the money elsewhere. I go no further than that.

The House is unanimous about the importance of the air cadet movement and agrees that it should be expanded. I agree with the hon. Member for Warley, West: the air cadet movement should be expanded on the basis of what already exists. We are not talking about an air cadet unit in every school--far from it. Such units already exist in the community and they should have the maximum number of cadets that they can recruit, increased at a sustainable rate. If a review is to take place, what is required more than anything else is that the staff who give of their spare time to look after those youngsters should be given confidence that there will be a vibrant air cadet--and Army and sea cadet, for that matter--organisation in the future, so that they can see a future in their participation. Too much change and disruption often results in volunteers deciding to call it a day and going to help with some other voluntary organisation.

I therefore hope that the Regular officers who are tasked with looking at the air cadet movement fully take into account the views of reservists and understand the special nature of that movement, which, in many parts of the country, often provides the only link with the rest of the community. For instance, in the north-west, where I come from, just one RAF unit remains, so virtually the only contact that 6.3 million people have with the RAF is through the cadets, who can be seen in uniform on Remembrance Sunday and who help in the community.

One of the themes running through my speech is the fact that changes should be relatively gradual, to ensure that they do not damage operational effectiveness. It is inevitable that, because of the Labour party's decision to have a defence review, a shadow hangs over the RAF. I hope that that shadow will be temporary and light, and I suspect that Labour Members in the Chamber tonight also hope that it will be light. In a spirit of companionship with Opposition Members, I should like to say that if, through some mistake that the electorate might make, the Labour party became the next Government, we would be right behind Labour Members who fought the Treasury and others, to ensure that our armed forces were reduced no further.

As I have said to colleagues, I find it impossible to talk about stability in the armed forces when cuts are being made. Equally, it is impossible to talk about stability in the armed forces if they are being offered a defence review at the same time.

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