Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
TUESDAY 19 DECEMBER 2006
LORD DRAYSON,
MR DAVID
GOULD CB, MR
AMYAS MORSE
AND MR
MARK GIBSON
Q80 Chairman: Can we come back to
that.
Lord Drayson:—that is affected.
Chairman: There are several questions
you still have to ask, David.
Q81 Mr Borrow: I will try and move
on. Aerospace workers in Lancashire were very pleased with the
announcement at the end of last week but I think they would expect
me to ask you, Minister, whether there is still a requirement
for a Tranche 3 of the Typhoon and even if you cannot say when
the order will be placed I think the fact that you say there is
a requirement will give further confidence to aerospace workers
in Lancashire.
Lord Drayson: I can understand
that. I cannot give an answer and the reason I cannot give an
answer is because my ability to effect the change that I have
talked about earlier in Typhoon Eurofighter is very much tied
up with the answer to that question. If I may I really do have
to keep my powder dry on that one to be able to best have the
ability to effect the changes which we want to see in the overall
Eurofighter Typhoon construct.
Q82 Mr Borrow: If I can pull two
questions together in one over the UAVs. Are you absolutely certain
that there is no long-term requirement for a manned fighter aircraft
after JSF which I think seems to be the position at the moment,
that we are not asking UK industry to think beyond the Joint Strike
Fighter in terms of manned military aircraft, putting all our
eggs in the basket of UAVs? Are you sure that is the right strategy?
Whilst I welcome the agreement with BAE Systems and some of the
other companies on UAVs there was a considerable feeling amongst
the industry prior to that announcement that the amount of investment
that was being put into UAVs is a long way behind our competitors.
Are you now confident we are where we should be in that part of
the defence market?
Lord Drayson: I think that the
Royal Air Force have put considerable time into thinking about
this question. When we launched the RANDs Project the System Chief
of the Air Staff talked about what the future might look like
in terms of air capability, of there being mixed fleets of fighters
where you would have some manned combat fighters but they would
also be flying with unmanned fighters, and he talked about the
advantages that unmanned fighters bring but also where in certain
circumstances you do need manned fighters. In terms of
the sovereign capability the United Kingdom needs for the future
and a realistic assessment of how it can best maintain that given
the nature of the global aerospace industry, I think the decision
is the right one to say focusing on this particular type of UAV
it is important for us to recognise there is the autonomy, these
aircraft being able to fly themselves. As you know, current unmanned
air vehicles very much do not fly themselves, there are people
on the ground effectively flying them. This is about autonomous
UAVs, absolutely an area where the United Kingdom has a technology
need, it is something which we build upon, it is something which
we believe to be important to defence in the future. In terms
of manned combat fighters it is absolutely the right decision
I believe for us to be involved in that as part of an international
consortium. Team JSF is about a recognition that the cost and
complexity of creating a stealthy fighter like JSF is best done
through international collaboration and that is the way we should
go in the future, not be developing those ourselves, it is not
realistic for us to do that.
Q83 Mr Borrow: In future anything
after JSF will inevitably be a UK collaboration?
Lord Drayson: UK-US or UK with
other partners, as we have seen with Typhoon and as we have seen
with Joint Strike Fighter.
Chairman: Moving on to Joint Strike Fighter,
David Crausby.
Q84 Mr Crausby: If we could turn
to the issues of technology transfer, could the Committee congratulate
you on obtaining the necessary assurances from the United States
on technology transfer on the Joint Strike Fighter programme which
has enabled us to sign the Memorandum of Understanding, although
I have to say I confess to believing the proof of the pudding
will be very much in the eating. I guess that is the situation
that you would take.
Lord Drayson: I agree with you
100%.
Q85 Mr Crausby: Can you give us some
insight into that? How confident are you that the issue has been
put to bed completely now and it will not resurface as the programme
moves forward? Do the assurances cover the technology and information
required by not just the UK Government but UK industry as well?
How can we guarantee that transfer of technology moves down the
industrial line as well?
Lord Drayson: I think that we
have got a good agreement under the Memorandum of Understanding
which is an agreement to provide us with the technology which
we need. What we need to make sure is that that technology transfer
happens. So it is about maintaining the focus that we had in these
discussions this year in the run-up to the signing of the Memorandum
of Understanding, maintaining that focus forward in terms of the
delivery of the technology transfer as we go through the development
of the aircraft. We need to recognise this is an aircraft which
is not yet built, not yet even designed, although the aircraft
in terms of an air frame is pretty largely designed, a lot of
the combat systems, the clever stuff inside the aircraft is being
designed. It is understandable that that technology transfer has
not happened yet because the technology has not been created yet.
We need to focus on making sure that we have good processes, good
focus, ministers like myself continue to maintain the level of
dialogue with opposite numbers in the United States to maintain
the emphasis on this. I think if we maintain it at the level that
we have got it today, yes, I have a high degree of confidence.
The agreement that we have provides real clarity, I think that
has been a really good thing about this whole process. It does
provide what industry needs and so I am confident that industry
will have what it needs to do the job industry needs to do for
us to deliver operational sovereignty. The other thing which has
been encouraging for me is that the Joint Strike Fighter project
has been the core focus of discussions around technology transfer
with the United States because of its importance over the past
year. Of course there are many other things which we discuss with
the United States on technology transfer, other projects, and
we have seen, I think in part because of what we have been doing
on Joint Strike Fighter but generally because of the effort that
has been put in both by the American Administration and by the
UK, an improvement over the last three months or so in terms of
the speed and efficiency of the technology transfer decision-making
process with the United States. I could mention a number of projects,
things like the future strategic tanker, as an example where technology
transfer decisions, licensing decisions, have been made more rapidly.
We welcome this. There is a joint initiative going on between
us and the United States to create a structure on technology transfer,
an overarching structure, which facilities greater efficiency.
I think that the operational tempo that we have at the moment
means that there is a real need to make this as efficient as it
can be, that is recognised on both sides of the Atlantic, and
I hope that 2007 is a year when that framework is put in place
such that we have not got to address these things just on a project
basis all the time but we have more of an overarching agreement
which makes the whole process more efficient.
Q86 Mr Crausby: Will that cover us
for upgrades in the future? We are talking about a very long time,
are we not?
Lord Drayson: Yes.
Q87 Mr Crausby: How can we guarantee
that in 10, 15, 20, 30 years' time—
Lord Drayson: Because the MoU
sets out principles. Because a lot of the technology has not been
developed yet and there are going to be changes in the future,
the only way you address that is by setting out clear principles
and getting that into the agreement. A clear principle, for example,
that UK citizens will be in the chain of command to deliver operational
sovereignty, unbroken, no US citizens in that chain of command,
as a way of establishing a principle which makes it very clear
that what happens in the future, with the future being uncertain,
you have still got what you need to deliver what it is you want.
Q88 Mr Crausby: We have a Memorandum
of Understanding and the spirit of that is good, but how committed
are we? Is there still an exit strategy to all of this or are
we completely locked in?
Lord Drayson: The Memorandum of
Understanding does not commit us to buy aircraft, what the Memorandum
does is take us to the next stage. We need to recognise this is
a project of high complexity. There are things which could go
wrong in the project in terms of technical issues. We have to
focus very much on making sure that we manage this project from
our point of view as a customer with the United States. The Memorandum
gives us the clarity on the principles, the agreement on the transfer
of technology, but we have to apply all of the other disciplines
that we need to apply on projects. This is a very important project.
One of the things which I pressed with the American Administration
when I was there last week, particularly with Gordon England,
the Deputy Secretary of Defence, was where does America stand
on this project, how much of a priority and focus does it have
within the defence budget, how committed is the United States
on the STOVL variant, which is the variant which we want, and
I was reassured by the answers that I got from Gordon England.
He was very hard in terms of the focus, in terms of the project
not going to the right, the project being delivered and the necessary
leadership being provided to ensure that happens.
Q89 Mr Crausby: It has been a long
and difficult process, has it not, when you couple that with the
problems that we had with the ITAR waiver it seems to me that
it was very much a crunch time, not just about JSF but about our
relationship with the United States. What is the major lesson
that we should learn in what has been a really difficult business
of ensuring that we can get this technology transfer? How will
we be able to ensure in the future that we can confidently deal
with the Americans in particular for this kind of project?
Lord Drayson: The feedback that
I have had on this, and that is feedback in terms of our staff
within the embassy in the United States, feedback from the United
States Administration itself, the Senate Armed Forces Committee,
feedback from industry, both American industry and UK industry,
was the key lesson that being absolutely crystal clear makes a
real difference. Setting out why we feel how we feel about technology
transfer in sufficient detail, expressing that, and very clearly
and plainly saying, "This is what we need to see to buy the
aircraft" and then, if I may say so, putting the effort into
making sure that clarity is maintained through months of the process.
That was why I made the comment I made about this Committee, because
this Committee made a real difference in terms of the United Kingdom
being able to say, very clearly indeed, "Look, this is not
personal, we are just saying this is the basis on which we are
going to buy the aircraft and that is the only basis upon which
we are going to buy the aircraft" and across political complexions
of the United Kingdom this is the view. That clarity focuses everyone's
mind that there is no discussion about the objective, it is focusing
on getting the objective achieved. Given that these objectives
are very difficult to achieve, technology transfer is very complicated,
it is absolutely right the United States—like we are—are
very careful in the way in which they handle proprietary information.
The way in which you make these things happen is being crystal
clear and then sticking to that clarity, and that takes work and
commitment and I think on both sides of the House that has really
helped.
Q90 Mr Jenkin: Minister, just to
underline your achievement, can I ask you to clarify one or two
aspects of this. When you talk about "operational sovereignty
of JSF" does that mean effectively once we have the aircraft
we will be able to operate it indefinitely without recourse to
US technical support?
Lord Drayson: No. The key principle
of this whole project is the concept of economies of scale such
that by all these nations pooling together you get a class of
aircraft of such a size that the whole process is efficient. Now
what we need to do is these nations stick together such that in
future, as the aircraft gets upgraded and developed, we all benefit
from the economies of scale and people do not go it alone to destroy
economies of scale. However, at the same time, we need to be clear
about, once we have got these aircraft, how we ensure that we
have operational sovereignty on their upgrade in terms of weapons
that we fit to it, its maintenance, how we repair and maintain
it, and how we use it, how we put the mission objectives in the
aircraft and these things. In other words, you have an important
management job of maintaining the economies of scale and separating
those economies of scale issues from technology transfer issues
which deliver you operational sovereignty, that is about getting
into the detail of the engineering issues within the aircraft,
systems Through Life, specifying which affects which and making
the right decisions about that.
Q91 Mr Jenkin: I am distressed I
asked you a yes/no question and you answered no and then gave
me a very long explanation. We are talking about critically the
source codes in the critical flight safety software which enables
the aircraft to be reloaded with software before each flight.
It is as basic as that. If we did not have operational sovereignty
we would not even be able to fly the aircraft, would we?
Lord Drayson: With respect, you
are now asking a completely different question. This is not the
same thing. I answered you directly, the importance for us, like
all the other nations in the future is it is really important
that we recognise the economies of scale point—
Q92 Mr Jenkin: I am sorry, that is
not the question I am asking. Are we going to be able to fly this
aircraft independently of US technical support, ie we are not
going to be dependent upon US passport holders or US subcontractors
in order to fly this aircraft from mission to mission?
Lord Drayson: I am sorry, I thought
I had answered that very clearly, absolutely, yes.
Q93 Mr Jenkin: For how long?
Lord Drayson: We have a clear
unbroken chain of command of UK citizens.
Q94 Mr Jenkin: I am not asking about
chain of command, I am asking about technical support.
Lord Drayson: I am talking about
all aspects of technology necessary to do what you have just described.
There are some aspects which are of a level of classification
and secrecy that that know-how cannot be in industry, therefore
they need to be in the heads of RAF officers or UK civil servants
but not US citizens. Therefore, to make it an absolutely crystal
clear test that in the future you can judge me on, the British
aircraft carriers in the future with the British JSFs flying on
them, they do not have to have a US citizen on board that aircraft
carrier to be able to load, maintain, fly these.
Q95 Mr Jenkin: Are these necessary
assurances that you refer to contained within the Memorandum of
Understanding?
Lord Drayson: Yes.
Q96 Mr Jenkin: Your co-signatory
is?
Lord Drayson: The United States.
Q97 Chairman: Is it Gordon England?
Lord Drayson: Yes, Gordon England.
Q98 Mr Jenkin: There is absolutely
no question of any misunderstanding in the United States that
they have not given us what you think they have given us?
Lord Drayson: I am absolutely
clear on that.
Q99 Mr Jenkin: Do you think the Congress
will accept that as well?
Lord Drayson: Yes.
Mr Jenkin: Thank you very much, Minister.
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