Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
WEDNESDAY 9 NOVEMBER 2005
MINISTRY OF
DEFENCE
Q40 Mr Bacon: I should like to ask
a question about cannibalisation which the Chairman touched on
earlier. Figure 14 on page 28 refers to the number of vehicles
cannibalised, the percentage of non-deployed fleet cannibalised
and the total number of components cannibalised by vehicle type.
Let me just take the top line as an example, the Challenger 2.
It says that there are 44 vehicles cannibalised and the percentage
of non-deployed fleet which has been cannibalised is 22%. Does
that mean that the 44 is 22% of a figure which is presumably roughly
170 or so of non-deployed vehicles or what? What is the number
of vehicles which are actually non-deployed and what is the number
of vehicles which are deployed, just to take that top line with
the Challenger 2?
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: That
is 22% of the fleet not deployed. The not-deployed fleet will
consist of the training fleet and the various other—
Q41 Mr Bacon: When you say "fleet"
I always think of ships. Do you mean Challenger 2s?
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: The total
number we own.
Q42 Mr Bacon: How many Challenger
2s do we have in total?
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: I do
not know.
Lieutenant General Sir Rob Fry:
I do not know.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: This is the
problem, because we have an operational fleet and one which is
non-operational.
Q43 Mr Bacon: You do not know how
many Challenger 2s we have.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: No.
Lieutenant General Sir Rob Fry:
We know how many armoured regiments we have, but that is not going
to give you the complete answer.
Q44 Mr Bacon: I am looking for several
bits in order to get a complete answer. I should like to know
how many Challenger 2s there are. That is part one. Part two is:
how many Challenger 2s are cannibalised? I think the answer is
44.
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Correct.
Q45 Mr Bacon: How many non-deployed
Challenger 2s are there?
Lieutenant General Sir Rob Fry:
We could work this out mathematically. I do not know the answers,
but we could work it out mathematically because the figure 44
represents 22% of the non-deployed fleet.
Q46 Mr Bacon: That is what I was
assuming and in my head I was making it 170 or so. If it were
25% then presumably it would be 44 times four, 176, but it will
be perhaps slightly higher. Am I on the right lines?
Lieutenant General Sir Rob Fry:
Yes.
Q47 Mr Bacon: Is it possible we could
have a note in each case with the gross number of the type of
vehicle, so the gross number of Challenger 2s, the gross number
of Warriors, the gross number of AS90s? Is that an armoured personnel
vehicle?
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: A note.
Yes.
Q48 Mr Bacon: All the way down column
one, the total number of items of each particular bit of kit.
Secondly, the numbers which have been cannibalised, which is column
one here in the Report. Thirdly, the number which are not deployed,
irrespective of whether they are cannibalised or not; the number
not deployed. Fourthly, the number deployed. Could we have that?[1]
Sir Kevin Tebbit: On this particular
operation?
Q49 Mr Bacon: Everything which is
on this chart, in other words all these different vehicles. This
chart relates to TELIC, does it not?
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: It does.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: Indeed, it is
a TELIC chart, exactly. Happy to do so. I am sure neither we nor
the NAO would have wanted to mislead you.
Q50 Mr Bacon: No, I just want to
get it clear in my head. Did I understand you to say we cannibalise
aircraft?
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: We do.
We tend not to use the word cannibalise: robbery tends to be the
vernacular.
Q51 Mr Bacon: I am not a great expert
on aircraft. I know there is a thing called the Tornado and I
think there is a thing called the Jaguar. How many different aircraft
types do we fly in the RAF?
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: I was
rather hoping that you would ask the fleet disposition/Tornado
question, because I could probably have answered that.
Q52 Mr Bacon: How many different
fighters do we have?
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: How many
different fighter types?
Q53 Mr Bacon: Yes.
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Harrier,
Jaguar, Tornado, Typhoon.
Q54 Mr Bacon: How many bombers do
we have? I think in a very simple World War II kind of way.
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: A Tornado
GR4 is a bomber.
Q55 Mr Bacon: As well as being a
fighter.
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Indeed.
Q56 Mr Bacon: I understand.
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: There
is the problem: a number of our systems are multi-role.
Q57 Mr Bacon: What about big aircraft,
transport vehicles, Galaxies or whatever they are called.
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: We have
52 Hercules in various variants. We have four C17s, TriStar, VC10,
Canberra sitting rather in the middle range, an old type bomber
but now a reconnaissance platform.
Q58 Mr Bacon: Does the robbery programme
encompass all of these different aircraft?
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: It would.
The technique of robbery would be applied to those.
Q59 Mr Bacon: Could I possibly have
my Challenger tank chart for these different aircraft as well?
Then I can have in my left-hand column the number of Typhoons,
the number of Tornados, the number of Harriers et cetera,
then the number cannibalised, then the number not deployed, whether
cannibalised or not and then the number deployed.[2]
Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: For the
TELIC period?
1 Ev 18-19 Back
2
Ev 20-26 Back
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