Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
TUESDAY 23 MAY 2000
SIR ROBERT
WALMSLEY AND
VICE-ADMIRAL
SIR JEREMY
BLACKHAM
60. Will OCCAR be involved in the management
of the BVRAAM programme?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) We do not currently envisage
that. OCCAR is for a genuinely collaborative programme. The participation
by the countries in this programme is asymmetric to the extent
that the United Kingdom may well be the only country which is
signing up for development and production in the first contract.
OCCAR remains therefore a possibility but it is by no means an
automatic certainty because we envisage the United Kingdom managing
this project with other countries present rather than on a totally
symmetrical basis between the six nations, two of whom incidentally
are not in OCCAR.
61. Which two?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) Sweden and Spain.
62. What safeguards will there be to ensure
that we do not have inefficient juste retour as in some
past collaborative projects which we shall not name but you know
which ones?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) I certainly do, kind of like
every one. I did say there would be no directed workshare. That
is absolutely a principle of this contract. I did also say, which
I agree is slightly trying to have my cake and eat it, that we
would make the prime contractor responsible for achieving work
in the countries and I gave the broad ranges of percentages. Note
they were broad numbers, this is not Eurofighter territory of
36.2% falling to one country. First of all, no directed work,
but, I think quite sensibly, reasonable guidance provided to the
prime contractor. We expect industrial participation from all
six countries.
63. How would you ensure that happens?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) We shall monitor it.
64. If you found that there were discrepancies
on your broad figures, what would happen?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) Quite a difficult one. First
of all, we would not sign the agreement until we got their commitment
to some numbers. So if they choose to break the agreement there
will be contractual arrangements which come into play. I cannot
recall an occasion where somebody signed a contract or signed
an agreement and then deliberately went out to bust it. I am sure
it does happen, but it has not happened to us yet.
Mr Cann
65. You said "be in charge". Would
you like to rephrase that a little?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) Probably.
66. Like "take a leadership role"
or something. Would that be better?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) It would and I wish I had said
it, but I did not. I wanted to make it quite clear to the Committee—quite
clear to the Committee—that this is not going to be a wishy-washy
programme, where we all come in in the morning and decide what
to do next. There is going to be leadership from an integrated
project team. The fact that there is a UK citizen is far less
important than that there will be a proper integrated project
team with a single leader. The point I really should have made
is that the programme will be under rigorous, disciplined management
and we will take a leadership role.
67. We can take that as being a recantation
of what you said previously, for any of our Spanish and German
friends.
(Sir Robert Walmsley) You certainly can. I think they
have heard me before. I do not think they will be surprised or
offended.
68. My next question is for the Admiral. When
you appeared before us last month you said that "... war
is an economic activity", which took some of us by surprise,
"it does not make sense to use a weapon that is more expensive
than the target". Have we struck the right balance with Eurofighter/Meteor?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) I am not quite
sure what the point you are making is. I am not aware of any missile
which remotely approaches the cost of an aircraft and if a missile
were to be used to shoot down an aircraft that seems to me to
be a pretty favourable economic balance.
69. What is the cost of one missile?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) I should have to
defer to Sir Robert, but very substantially less than the cost
of an aircraft.
(Sir Robert Walmsley) Not much more than one%. I am
being a bit opaque because we have not bolted down the prices
yet, but it is not two%.
Chairman
70. When will all our Eurofighters be fully
operational and fully capable?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) The last one comes off the production
line under the present plans in 2014. I should think that at that
stage we shall have the seven squadrons Admiral Blackham mentioned.
Some of them will be kept in hangars, so they will not be fully
operational. Some of them will be undergoing modification, some
of them will no doubt be used for training and would not be fully
operational and would be two-seaters. That is the best answer
I can give.
71. Why is there such reluctance for the Ministry
of Defence to tell us about the ISD?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) I do not think there is, although
I am being rather bureaucratic in my answer. We have defined the
in-service date as the date of the first delivery of the first
Eurofighter to the Royal Air Force. We are quite open, that is
June 2002. Where we are much shier, and I apologise for being
coy and I am well aware of the background to this, is that with
our partners we have not so far agreed to put in the public domain
information related to the buildup of capabilities in our air
force because it would relate to buildup of capability in their
air force. I am sure that is going to burst through the dam quite
soon, but it has not yet.
72. So it is for our colleagues in other defence
committees to be putting the same kind of question. What practical
difference will a fully capable Eurofighter make to military operations?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) It will provide
the ability to achieve air superiority against the threats we
can currently envisage.
73. How about the present arrangements?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) The Eurofighter
will, as you know, in the interim be fitted with AMRAAM and it
will also have access to ASRAAM. It will be fitted with a range
of missiles and I am quite confident that it can meet the threat
of today and, as we have been discussing for the last hour or
so, we are making preparations to ensure that we can meet the
threat tomorrow as well.
74. Whilst we are waiting for these aircraft,
and 2014 is an awful long way away for them all to be available
and I can imagine a National Audit Office report 20 years from
now saying that there has been some slippage, but a long, long
time away, are you satisfied that our existing aircraft are capable
of achieving, bearing in mind the competition, what Tornado was
intended to do in terms of air superiority?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) Yes, I am. I am
not convinced that will be the case when we get towards the end
of this first decade, which is of course the reason why we are
taking the steps we are. It would not be going beyond what Sir
Robert said, if I just went a little bit further and said that
the last aircraft being delivered in 2014 will probably be the
last one of the attrition aircraft. I would expect that we will
get full operational capability rather before that.
75. I hope you are right. If it is possible
to imagine that the Ministry of Defence is a super efficient machine—I
shall give you a bit of time to work out what that might be—imagine
that we had had Eurofighter available during Kosovo, what could
we have achieved with that leap of imagination compared with what
we were able to do with the aircraft available to the Royal Air
Force?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) I am trying to
get my mind round the idea of the Ministry of Defence being a
super efficient organisation. Having done that, I am not sure
I can answer the question because I am not sure what more we would
have wanted to achieve in Kosovo. We achieved all that we wanted
to.
76. Having seen the statistics, they do not
lead me to the conclusion that the way in which the air force
was deployed or the equipment available matched the aspirations
of the Chiefs or their political masters.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) Our contribution
in Kosovo was a range of different capabilities and as part of
a very large allied force. We contributed to various different
parts of that at various different levels. That seems to me to
be the way we would normally operate. It also seems to me to have
been a perfectly reasonable way to operate. The important thing
is that the sum of that activity achieved the deserved result.
I am not quite clear what more we would have wanted to achieve.
Mr Cann
77. The thing was designed 14 or so years ago,
it will come into service totally in another 14 years, therefore
when it comes into service it will have been designed from beginning
to end 28 years ago. Are you quite sure it will not be obsolescent?
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) That is a slight
stretch of the facts. The aircraft was first identified as a need
some while ago but it was not fully designed until much more recently.
The programme is being reviewed constantly, both in terms of the
avionics and the missiles. The aircraft itself is at the forefront
of combat aircraft flying and we are now trying to ensure that
the missile is the same.
(Sir Robert Walmsley) May I make absolutely clear—the
point about 2014 is understood—that the question I understood
the Chairman to have asked me was when would all the RAF's Eurofighters
be in service. That was what I was trying to answer. Obsolescence
will be managed throughout the life of the aircraft. We are already
starting to encounter obsolescence issues in Eurofighter and equipment
is being replaced. That is why we have embarked on a new solid
state radar technology demonstration programme with France and
Germany called AMSAR, which is just the sort of thing we need
to do in the year 2000 if we are going to put a new radar into
Eurofighter midway through its life.
78. It is planned obsolescence then, is it?
(Sir Robert Walmsley) No.
79. We keep adding bits to it, like we did to
Tornado.
(Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham) We have always
done that and I imagine we always will. Technology changes very
fast and that affects both sides in any conflict. I should be
astonished if that did not continue to be the case, indeed it
is quite likely to accelerate, I should have thought.
Mr Cann: Is this going to be on our list
of things we track?
Chairman: For a long, long time, I regret
to say.
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