My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his questions. I obviously do not agree with him. I think this is basically a good thing for the Ministry of Defence, its budget and the taxpayer. The noble Lord mentioned a document that has been doing the rounds of the newspapers. The document in question was produced by the strategic supplier management team. The ratings on the SIB are taken from the Company Watch report and are provided for information purposes only. The SIB is not used in the formal assessment of the company’s financial health and is purely for background.

All competitive proposals were thoroughly analysed by subject-matter experts from within the defence and wider fire and rescue sectors. The recommendations were also subject to detailed scrutiny by the Ministry of Defence, Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Cabinet Office. The scrutiny extended for more than six weeks longer than it needed, to ensure that due diligence had been carried out.