I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Key. If you will forgive a little aside, I note that you are a keen follower of defence matters. I thank you for all that you have done to promote defence during your time in the House of Commons. It has been appreciated by us all. You have been a stalwart and sometimes outspoken proponent of the defence industry.

The hon. Member for Cheadle mentioned Rivet Joint, which is a technical issue and a classified area of defence activity. Like the hon. Gentleman, I am extremely concerned about the implications of the Government's moving down the route of the Rivet Joint proposal. I understand the concept of taking three existing United States aeroplanes-old though they are-rather than developing the Nimrod, which has been one of the least successful programmes in the BAE stable. My view on that is well known. It has been a terrible chapter of mismanagement over a long period.

The Rivet Joint position is worse than the hon. Member for Cheadle suggests. He asked who gets first call on the intelligence. As the Minister knows, we provide intelligence; we are contributors and exchangers, not takers of US intelligence, because we have something to contribute. Under his proposals, not only will there be a three-year capability gap when we will have no such ability to obtain intelligence for ourselves, but, even more critically, we will have nothing to contribute. That will result in the United States once again being the only supplier and will put us in the position of supplicant. That is a serious matter. For obvious reasons, I do not encourage the Minister to address the fundamentals underlying it, but he must own up and say why the capability gap will exist in such a vital area, where we and the United States enjoy a special relationship in the exchange of intelligence.

I shall conclude my remarks fairly soon, but I make no apology for returning to some of the more partisan points made by the hon. Member for South Ribble. He raised issues that he wants to promote around his constituency during the general election campaign. I understand why Labour and its trade union paymasters want to misrepresent Conservative policy. It is rather sad given the common ground that the hon. Gentleman and I have shared on these issues in the past, but it is predictable.

The headline in the leaflet-"Vote Conservative and destroy the defence industry"-is absolutely outrageous. The hon. Gentleman owes an apology not only to the Conservative party, but to his constituents, whom he seems determined to frighten the life out of. The leaflet states:

"How much of this would be stopped if the Tories had their way?"

As I tried to point out to him, we have made it clear that we will have a defence review. There is no difference between my party and his on that issue. If one programme after another is exempted from the review, there is no point in having a review.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, because I anticipate that the hon. Gentleman wants to ask why we have excluded Trident. We have excluded it for the very good reason that we believe that decisions have to be taken, unlike his party, which thinks that a Trident successor can be magicked up in a few seconds. It cannot be; it is a long-term programme and a strategic issue. We have made up our minds, as indeed have the Government.

To be fair, the hon. Member for South Ribble pointed out that the Labour and Conservative parties share common ground on the need to replace the independent Trident nuclear deterrent. To exclude other programmes would be to undermine the whole purpose of the strategic defence review. There has not been such a review since 1998. When I first broached the idea, I thought that senior military commanders would object and say that it would mean more cuts. However, they said that we need a defence review because there is a new world order that requires us to step back and look at the big picture. We need to consider what threats we face, and, therefore, what force structures we require and what equipment we require to support them.

As you were not here earlier, Mr. Key, perhaps I can repeat what the Secretary of State said in a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring as recently as 8 March:

"We have been very clear since the publication of the Defence Green Paper that everything other than Trident is included in the Strategic Defence Review. But unless the review takes us in a very radical new direction, aircraft carriers are likely to remain critical elements of our force structure."-[Hansard, 8 March 2010; Vol. 507, c. 20W.]

That is Labour's position. The Conservative position was stated on 1 March:

"We have always made very clear our arguments about seaborne air power projection. It would be perfectly reasonable to expect the carrier programme to continue under another Government, unless there were strong reasons in a strategic defence review for it not to."-[Hansard, 1 March 2010; Vol. 506, c. 673.]

The position is identical. If the hon. Member for South Ribble persists in spreading the lie that the Conservative party has a different position from his party, he will do a disfavour to himself and to those he claims to speak up for, namely the highly skilled employees of the aerospace industry on whom our armed forces depend. I urge him not to do so.

I make it clear that the Conservative party is committed to a vibrant defence industrial base. I put on the record what my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring said on 8 February in a speech at the Royal United Services Institute:

"In order to ensure we are able to respond to rapidly changing threats we must have a vibrant defence industrial base. Without it we would have no operational sovereignty-thereby threatening our national sovereignty."

Our position could not be clearer. We are not believers in buying off the shelf, which would mean buying American. As I said to the Minister, that would mean ceasing to be a partner and becoming a supplicant. There is common ground in wanting a vibrant defence industrial base in the United Kingdom.

In the launch book for the new trade organisation, AeroSpace Defence Security, which replaced the Society of British Aerospace Companies and the Defence Manufacturers Association, the Leader of the Opposition stated:

"I am delighted to welcome the arrival of ADS to combine the interests of the Aerospace, Defence and Security sectors. Together, these industries harness some of the best of the nation's high-tech skills to develop world-leading technologies for military and civil applications. I am committed to the creation of a vibrant and diversified British economy where ADS member companies can flourish, continuing their proud record of contributing to Britain's prosperity and its security, and my colleagues join me in wishing you every possible success."

I do not think there is anything between the parties on what they want to do.

The hon. Member for South Ribble singled out a quotation from the Lancashire Evening Post in the leaflet he referred to. To ensure greater accuracy, I have obtained a copy of the letter that I sent to the industry on 16 September. It stated that the shadow Chancellor's comments

"were not part of his prepared speech but made in a Q&A session at a Spectator conference, when George was asked if the Conservatives felt able to undertake an SDR whilst in Opposition. Naturally, he highlighted the severely limited access which the Opposition has to MoD documents and accounts without which an SDR cannot be undertaken. When pressed on the material to which access would be required George mentioned a number of factors, including commercial procurement contracts, and listed a number of programmes as examples."

My hon. Friend did not single out any programme to be axed. I put that firmly on the record.

This great industry is one of Britain's huge success stories. Lancashire, along with other parts of the country, has a proud tradition of pre-eminence in the aerospace industry. We all wish those involved in the industry in the area continuing success not only in delivering high quality kit for our armed forces, but in contributing to the defence of these islands and the United Kingdom's wider interests around the world.

As the hon. Member for Cheadle rightly said-I said I would come back to this point-we face an economic sandstorm as a result of the Prime Minister's complete and abject mismanagement of the economy, both in his current role and as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was not the golden boy of the Treasury; his judgment resulted in our selling off the gold reserves at rock-bottom prices, which led to the destruction of the pensions industry. The dreams of millions of our fellow citizens were destroyed in the process.

The Prime Minister has never properly funded the armed forces to do the job that is required of them, and there is no doubt that the incoming Government will be faced with an economic wasteland that he created. He inherited a strong economy from my right hon. and learned Friend Mr. Clarke, but he destroyed it and saddled this nation with debt. Some very hard decisions will have to be made, but as I have said, the first duty of Government is the defence of the realm. We face a very uncertain and volatile world and this is no time to be receding. If this country wishes to maintain its role in the world, ways have to be found to ensure that we can continue to bring our national influence to bear on the world stage, because I think we have something to contribute as a nation.

May I begin by saying that if I do not agree with Mr. Howarth very much during my remarks-and I may well agree with him very little-I thoroughly agree with his comments about you, Mr. Key? Your long and distinguished record in the House means that all hon. Members have a universal respect for your knowledge about, contribution to and judgment on defence matters, which has been displayed over the years both on the Front and Back Benches, and it could not be more appropriate that you are presiding over this debate.

I congratulate my hon. Friend Mr. Borrow on securing the debate and on something even more important than that: he has done a good job not only as a powerful advocate for his constituents and Lancashire, but for the country as a whole. He has put his finger on something of enormous importance, which I do not think has yet been properly appreciated in this country: Tory plans to cancel the carrier programme would be a disaster not only for the shipbuilding industry-on the Clyde and the Tyne, in Portsmouth and elsewhere-and for the national defence capability, but for the aerospace industry, because if we do not have carriers, we will not be purchasing aircraft to fly off them.

May I make it absolutely clear to the Minister that he is completely wrong? It is terminological inexactitude to say that we have plans to cancel the carrier. I have set out our position on the carrier, which, if he reads his own Secretary of State's written answers, he will see is identical to his position.

Our position is certainly not identical to the hon. Gentleman's position. There is a gulf about the size of the Grand Canyon between the Government's policies and the Tory party's plans on the carrier programme. The Tory party regard the strategic defence review as a kind of excuse to conceal their plans to make subsequent defence cuts; but, in fact, their plans for the carriers are no longer a secret.

Dr. Fox, the Conservative defence spokesman, has let the cat out of the bag-it is a very large, ugly cat, and it is right out of the bag. His remarks the other day to the convenors from the Clyde were clear. He said that in the first days of a Tory Government, if there were such a thing, he would be looking at the break clauses in the carrier contract. That is nothing to do with the SDR. The hon. Member for Aldershot kept talking about the SDR and the fact that the Tories would not make any cuts until it had been completed. However, that is not at all the message that the hon. Member for Woodspring has given to the House and the nation by the comments he made to the convenors the other day. It is clear that, in the first few days of a Conservative Administration, he intends to cancel those carriers right away. That would be a disaster.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble has pointed out-it was very necessary to do so-that such a policy would also be a disaster for the aerospace industry. People in Lancashire may well feel that they have nothing to do with the shipbuilding industry, which is correct, but they very much have something to do with the aerospace industry. That industry provides an important part of the joint strike fighter F-35 programme, which is likely to cost $250 billion-or perhaps a little more-and involve some 3,000 or 4,000 aircraft. The contribution of this country's industry to that programme will certainly be not less than 10 per cent. and could as much as 15 per cent. We are talking about between $25 billion and $40 billion-worth of exports for British defence industries. That is an enormously important economic factor for British manufacturing, and it is disproportionately important in the north-west, where so many of our aerospace and aerospace-related industries are located. Before people vote-whenever that is over the next months-it is important that they take into account the implications of Tory party plans on the carriers.

In my hon. Friend's remarks, he has represented well not just his constituents, but all the people of the north-west and all of those involved in aerospace. It is certainly true that there is a remarkable concentration of very impressive industrial assets in that area. I have visited most of them. There is Sealand on the Welsh border in the south-west. That Defence Support Group base repairs avionics and other equipment for the British armed forces and does an extremely good job. Moving towards the Manchester area, I have also been to Broughton, where EADS produces wings for the Airbus and is involved in world-leading technology.

Moving to the south of Manchester, in the constituency of Mark Hunter, there is Woodford, which he mentioned. I deeply regret that the Woodford site is now closing. I am afraid that these things happen in life. At the end of large programmes, changes will obviously be made. I deeply regret the decision to close Woodford rather than somewhere else, but that decision was, of course, made by BAE Systems. It was not in any way made by the British Government. I certainly hope and pray that many of the people with those remarkable skills who have been doing so well building the MRA4 and previous aircraft will find new opportunities for their skills in the expanding work force in Warton, Samlesbury or elsewhere. There will be great prospects, particularly because of the Typhoon programmes-I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman disparaged those-and the JSF, which clearly would not be safe in the hands of a Conservative Administration. I hope we will not have a Liberal or a Conservative Administration, and that those businesses and industries will continue to thrive and provide employment in the future, as in the past, for the very highly skilled workers and engineers who are so vital to the aerospace industry.

Moving further north, part of the Typhoon-the fuselage-is being built in Samlesbury and shipped to Warton to be assembled. Moreover, important parts of the F-35-the JSF-are currently being made. A few weeks ago, I saw those parts-the tailfins and the back of the fuselage-on the assembly line at Samlesbury. Those parts were then shipped to Fort Worth, Texas, where they were assembled on to the aircraft. The reason why BAES has secured that important work share in the project is that, largely as a result of the Typhoon, it has achieved engineering tolerances in automated machining that are greatly superior to those achieved in the United States. The F-22 had to be largely machined manually, because the Americans could not achieve the high tolerances on an automatic line that are required for aircraft subjected to those kinds of strains and stresses. BAE Systems has solved those engineering problems and is making that vital contribution to the F-35 programme. That is a good example of the synergy that exists between aircraft programmes, and it has certainly incorporated the remarkable skills of people in Samlesbury.

Then there is Warton, which, in addition to assembling the Typhoon, is the main locus for work on the Mantis and Taranis programmes, which are enormously important for the future, as was righty said by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble. They are beginning to employ in a big way, including many of the aerodynamicists and aeronautical engineers who up until now have been employed by the manned combat aircraft, particularly the Typhoon and the JSF F-35 programmes.

I was in Preston, which is further north in Lancashire, several days ago at the opening of the new office of the North West Aerospace Alliance, which has been referred to already and does a superb job. I must tell the hon. Member for Aldershot that there is considerable concern among the people I met there about any future Conservative Government. Indeed, there was much concern about the Conservatives' entirely nihilistic intention to destroy the regional development agencies, which are doing an excellent job across the country-the Northwest Regional Development Agency clearly has the respect of management and unions throughout the region-so their abolition would be extraordinary negative thing for the Conservatives to contemplate. I hope that they will not have the opportunity to do anything about it.

Further north in the region, BAE Systems has its submarine-building capability at Barrow-in-Furness, which employs around 4,500 people. It is true, as the hon. Member for Cheadle said, that some of them are facing redundancy, but other people are being taken on, so on a net basis, I am not sure that the work force there are falling. It is inevitable in the course of a programme that the mix of skills required will change and that changes in the work force will be needed, but people are certainly being employed at the same time as others are being made redundant voluntarily. That superb national asset is one of the few loci, if I may use a Latin term-the hon. Member for Aldershot was allowed to-for the building of nuclear-powered submarines in the world. Only we, the French, the Americans and the Russians currently have that capability.

The news until now for the north-west, and for the wider defence industry, has been pretty good, and there is no question but that it will continue to be so under a Labour Government. Among the programmes that we are all proud of, and on which I have spent much of my time over the past two years, is the Typhoon. I was able to announce the successful negotiation of the tranche 3 arrangements last summer, and those aircraft will keep BAE Systems fully occupied for the next five years. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Cheadle said, there are no delays or cost overruns whatever in tranche 2 or tranche 3, so that is pure imagination on his part. I am sorry that the Liberal Democrats are so ill-informed on such matters.

That is of great interest to people in Lancashire and, indeed, in the country generally, so would the Minister tell us what stage negotiations are at for tranche 3B and whether he has made up his mind on that yet?

We proceeded with tranche 3 last summer, and we are purchasing the aircraft for which we currently see an immediate requirement. I do not exclude the possibility of purchasing more Typhoon fighters in future at all, but equally I am not prepared to commit to that. We must ensure that we commission the number of aircraft that we need for the purposes we foresee. The strategic defence review will be a major informant of our future needs. The Government see the SDR as necessary at present for guidance on future decisions, as we have not had one for a long time. It will not be used as an excuse to cancel existing programmes and projects- far from it. I would not want to decide on whether to order further Typhoon aircraft until we have the results of SDR. That does not mean for one second that there is the slightest chance under a Labour Government of going back on the existing commitment on Typhoon tranche 3, or indeed anything else. We have no intention of doing so, and I make that statement absolutely advisedly and clearly.

We have also recently heard good news on the A400M programme. In Berlin, we were able to reach agreement on the terms and conditions for the renegotiation of that programme. We will be securing 22 of those aircraft, which is an important capability for the RAF, as the aircraft will have a greater capability than our existing Hercules aircraft-the C-130Ks and C-130Js-which carry about 20 tonnes. The A400M will carry more than 30 tonnes and so will carry the new generation of heavy armoured vehicles, including the prospective Scout vehicle, the Mastiff and the Warrior. It will have a strategic capability and will be able to do some of the work currently undertaken by our C-17s. Of course, we ordered another C-17 recently and will be taking delivery of that soon as well.

The A400M programme will also create thousands of jobs in the north-west for many years to come, and I trust that that programme will not end with the purchases of the partner nations. I believe that that will be a great commercial success, certainly after production of the C-17 is ceased, which might happen as early as next year. I look forward to many export orders and to the aviation and aerospace industry in the north-west having many continuing orders for that programme.

I know that the wings are being made at Filton, but I am not aware of any other major components of the A400M being made in the north-west. What other components will be made there?

The major sections are being made at Filton, as the hon. Gentleman says, but I can assure him that there are other subcontractors and suppliers in the north-west for components for that programme. I learnt that when I attended the function at Preston to which I referred earlier.

In the few minutes remaining, I will deal with some of the extraordinary illusions that I am afraid both the Liberal and Tory parties appear to have on important defence matters. With regard to the Helix programme, which was mentioned by both spokesmen, I of course regret that we were unable to use the MRA4 as a platform for continuing signals intelligence capability. Frankly, however, after I wrote to BAE Systems on that matter, it made it clear that it could not deliver the capability in the time available, which was by 2016. Therefore, BAE Systems wrote itself out of consideration for that. Apart from everything else, it would certainly not have been a risk-free approach to delivering that capability, because it would have required BAE Systems to engineer a new mission system and an entirely new airframe.

Will the Minister give way?

I will not give way, because I am coming to the end of my time. That would have been a risky operation. I have to tell the hon. Member for Aldershot that the arrangement that we have with the Americans is one that we will most certainly have in the intermediate period, starting rapidly, I trust, with full access to all the data. Subsequently, we will have British crew on those aircraft from the beginning, and when we take over those aircraft ourselves, we will deliver the data ourselves and pass it on to the Americans, as we do at the moment. We will determine the mission programme entirely-no doubt, after listening to any suggestions from our allies-and pass on the output, as we do currently. The difference is that we will have a much more capable mission system than we have at present. The hon. Member for Aldershot rightly said that I should not go into more details than that, and I will not, but I am happy to say that that new mission system will be a great deal more capable.

The hon. Member for Cheadle said that we did not have enough UAVs, which I though was an extraordinary comment, as we ordered some more Reapers-I cannot say how many we have in theatre-in December, if I recall correctly, so we are increasing the number of UAVs that we have in theatre. We are expecting Watchkeeper to come into service within the next year, and that, as a core programme, is a major investment. I have no idea where he got the idea that we are not investing in UAVs and are simply waiting for Taranis and Mantis. That was another ill-informed comment.

Will the Minister give way?

I am afraid that I cannot give way, as I have less than a minute to go. The debate has been extremely useful and has revealed some extraordinary misunderstandings, to put it politely, on the part of the Opposition parties on some fundamental facts about defence. It has highlighted the mortal threat posed to the aerospace industry in the north-west, to many other industries across the country and to our national defence capability by Conservative plans, as we know from the comments of the hon. Member for Woodspring.