Defence Manufacturing and Procurement: Shropshire

[Mrs Maria Miller in the Chair]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered defence manufacturing and procurement in Shropshire.

I thank Mr Speaker for allowing me the opportunity to bring this issue to the House’s attention. I am particularly pleased that the Minister of State is in his place, and look forward to his response to today’s debate.

Shropshire, and Telford and Wrekin, are fast becoming a crucial defence hub. Of course, there is a lot of defence history in Shropshire, which many Members will know about, but on the manufacturing side Shropshire, and Telford and Wrekin, are very much becoming a geographical engineering cluster that feeds not only the UK defence market, but the wider European defence manufacturing and procurement sector. I am proud that Shropshire continues to play its part in UK defence manufacturing, with existing contracts for Boxer and Warrior vehicles, and hopefully the Challenger 2 life extension programme.

The defence sector, locally and nationally, continues to grow under a Conservative Government. We should not ignore that material fact, for as you know, Mrs Miller, it is only with a strong defence that any country can have a strong peace. Defence manufacturing is an important part of the UK’s strong defence, and I am pleased that on 19 November, the Prime Minister committed the UK to increasing its defence budget—the largest boost in the nation’s defence for the past 30 years, and indeed the biggest increase post world war two—investing an extra £24 billion in our national security and sustaining and creating thousands of jobs across the UK, including in Shropshire. It is the biggest investment in the nation’s defence since the end of the cold war, which is fantastic news for the nation as a whole, and specifically for my constituents in The Wrekin.

The Minister will know that BAE Systems employs 300 people in Telford, and spends more than £6 million in the midlands supply chain and in the region as a whole, based at Hadley Castle Works. I am grateful that he took the time to visit my constituency some months ago and meet with many of these dedicated engineers, as well as those who manage the business. Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land is a very welcome joint venture between Rheinmetall and BAE Systems, designing, manufacturing and maintaining combat vehicles at Hadley Castle Works, with Rheinmetall owning a 55% stake in the joint venture and BAE Systems owning 45%. That joint venture will sustain a skilled workforce of about 450 employees across the UK, including those engineers based at RBSL in Telford. General Dynamics Land Systems—Force Protection Europe’s manufacturing spares facility—is also based in my constituency.

Then, of course, there is GKN, a manufacturer of off-highway wheels also based at Hadley Castle Works. GKN has had some challenges in recent years, but I hope that, whether it is under the current ownership of GKN or a future, different ownership, that site and the skillset there will be retained, not only for Shropshire but for the UK defence sector as a whole. It is important that GKN is supported, too. We also have Lockheed Martin, currently delivering the Warrior capability sustainment programme—the demonstration contract, that is—and that is welcome too. Babcock International, the defence engineering business, has a site in Donnington, and in April Babcock was awarded a contract to manufacture 10,000 ventilators to help to control the covid-19 pandemic. I pay tribute to all the workforce there and to the wider MOD staff at all those facilities—whether civilian or non-civilian, uniform or non-uniform —at MOD Donnington and RAF Cosford, as well as the private sector companies I have mentioned.

I want to put on the record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), who quite rightly is a champion of Caterpillar Defence, based in Shrewsbury, which as the Minister knows specialises in the design and development of engine and drivetrain packages to meet the needs of many of the tracked and wheeled military vehicles that the MOD uses. Of course, there are myriad local supply chains and small and medium-sized enterprises, and I am delighted that the Government have committed to getting more small businesses into defence supply chains.

We have had very welcome news about Boxer. It is designed to transport troops to the frontline and was described as a “leader in its field” by the Secretary of State for Defence, no less, and of course he is absolutely right. Over the next 10 years, RBSL will build 260 Boxer vehicles—almost half the British Army’s fleet, I hasten to add—in Telford at the Hadley site. That contract, worth £860 million, will create and sustain 200-plus skilled jobs in the area, and probably more. RBSL officially received its manufacturing subcontract just a few weeks ago. That was a very welcome pre-Christmas present, but the real Christmas present would be if the Minister were to announce today that the life extension of Challenger 2 is going ahead, and that much of that programme will be required to be delivered in my constituency.

Of course, we have the integrated review at the moment, and it is important that we have it to look at the whole piece, covering defence, foreign policy, diplomacy and intelligence—the whole gamut of how Governments protect themselves and project their own values and interests around the world. Hybrid warfare, information technology, the National Cyber Force, which is now public, and unmanned aerial vehicles are all vital, but at the end of the day there is still a requirement for hard kit—not just boots on the ground, but metal on the ground too. I hope that that is metal in the form of Challenger having its life extended and being delivered in, of course, Shropshire. The Boxer vehicles will be delivered in 2023, so the timeframe is quite short, but I have absolutely no doubt that they will be delivered on time.

The contract has been secured for RBSL’s main upcoming programme—the mechanised infantry vehicle programme—and I understand from the research done by my office that the Challenger 2 life extension programme will support 60 local suppliers. Covid has had an impact, albeit at the moment not a huge impact, but every job lost in my constituency is a job loss too many. There have been job losses since March. We have seen an upward tick in job losses in the constituency, and it would be great to have new job announcements to fight those unemployment figures.

Lockheed Martin is in charge of Warrior, the fighting vehicle capability and sustainment programme. Locally, we are seeing more and more people in our universities, including Wolverhampton and the new university campus in Shrewsbury—not so much Harper Adams, because that is mostly agritech—and more young people in the region being interested in defence manufacturing and a career in defence. Another fresh, good announcement would help a lot of those young people to make the right career choice.

The life extension programme is a UK MOD programme to deliver the next generation of heavy armoured capability. It is important to put that the record, but I know the Minister knows that. The programme will deliver Challenger 3, a network-enabled digital main battle tank that will reinvigorate the UK’s and Shropshire’s design and engineering skills. That digital element is critical and feeds into other Government streams of thinking. As I am sure the British Army would say, it will deliver a world-class capability, generating significant export opportunities and support for global Britain, and the UK’s wider economic growth. The maintenance of Challenger 2 will be carried out by Babcock Defence Support Group, which supports my constituents.

The Minister kindly answered a question that I put to him at the last Defence questions. I will quote it back to him, which is always a novelty. He said:

“The proposition is now being worked up prior to a decision being taken on the investment case.”—[Official Report, 7 December 2020; Vol. 685, c. 557.]

I understand that we are in the midst of the timetable where such decisions are being made. I am pretty sure that this debate is being held after some of those important decisions, rather than before. Perhaps the timing of this debate is purely coincidental, but I would proffer that it is not. I hope the Minister is therefore in a position to enlighten the Chamber today on the progress of the life extension programme.

As the Minister will be aware, RBSL won the contract for the Fuchs chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear reconnaissance vehicles and training simulator earlier this year. It will sustain the British Army’s fleet of reconnaissance vehicles and the training simulator. The contract has been awarded. Again, Hadley is playing its part, sustaining hundreds of jobs. That vehicle, with its built-in detection equipment for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats, is absolutely critical.

I want to give the Minister plenty of time to respond. Of course, every Member of Parliament rightly defends and speaks out for their constituency, but it is a matter of fact that the defence engineering skillset and the geographical cluster of those skills—to use management speak—in Telford and Wrekin in Shropshire is there for everybody to see. It does not make sense, whatever advocacy make take place for other parts of the country, for this work to go elsewhere, only for companies to struggle to recruit or relocate a workforce.

I put the case that if the Ministry of Defence wants to move quickly on a programme that is vital for the UK armed forces and the British Army, which will be the user, it makes sense to deliver it where the skills are, where the workforce is committed and where there is a history of dedication to Her Majesty’s armed forces, both in uniform and out of uniform.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for calling this debate. He is an assiduous constituency MP. He is one of those people, to whom he referred, who will always advocate the cause of their constituency, but he is also one of my hon. Friends who serves on the Intelligence and Security Committee. He had a previous role with the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and therefore knows the threats that we face, and the capabilities we need to meet those threats and deter them, both now and into the future.

It is a huge boon to my hon. Friend that he knows about the threats and capabilities, and that so many deterrents to them can be produced in the heart of Shropshire and in his constituency in particular, which combines great companies with tremendous skills, and an enthusiasm for embracing and supporting our armed forces in all their endeavours.

My hon. Friend referred to Boxer vehicles and the capabilities that they produce, which are just one good example. We look forward to bringing them into our armoury and helping to export them around the world. He touched on that, and we recognise it as a way we can help to drive forward the success of our sector in the future. We are currently the second biggest defence exporter in the world. We need to maintain that position to help ensure that we maintain research and development in our country, so that we continue to get the capabilities we need and to enhance those capabilities for the future.

My hon. Friend referred to the ventilator challenge and the work performed in his constituency. I recognise the fantastic achievements of the whole of the defence supply chain in supporting our great NHS throughout the pandemic. I highlight the work of everyone at the Defence Fulfilment Centre at Donnington in his constituency. I know that he knows it well. It has been the nerve centre and at the forefront of the logistics effort to provide vital equipment in support of the Department of Health and Social Care, including the supply of ventilators, to which he referred, and other critical medical equipment to the frontline.