Red Arrows
What steps he is taking to maintain the capability of the Red Arrows.
The strategic defence review recommended that the Hawk T1 and T2 be replaced with a cost effective advanced jet trainer. The future platform of the Royal Air Force aerobatic team is being considered at the same time, and a Royal Air Force programme team is being established to deliver that capability.
The TSR-2 aircraft was a world beater. Unfortunately, the only thing that it could not beat in a dog fight was a Labour Government, who knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Will the Minister assure me that we have learned the lessons of TSR-2, and that we will look at the replacement for the Hawk in the light of pressing a British designed and manufactured aircraft that can sell Britain abroad?
The Conservative party set 2030 as the Hawk T1’s out of service date in its 2015 strategic defence and security review, and it then did precisely nothing to achieve a replacement in the nine years that followed, so I am disinclined to take lessons from the hon. Gentleman’s party on how to replace the Hawk. I assure him that the competition will welcome any bids from UK based suppliers.