(DEFENCE AND EXTERNAL AFFAIRS SUB-COMMITTEE)
21 January, 1975.]
Mr. DAVID GREENWOOD.
expressed in the N.A.T.O./European setting could in fact be fulfilled. One is for some measure of a division of labour among N.A.T.O. countries about roles which might lead to definable savings and increased efficiency; and the second is this increased collaboration in procure- ment and thereby gaining the benefits of commonality and so on. I think that now, with an almost exclusively Euro- pean posture, some of the arguments that the service departments have been able to muster in the past against really whole- hearted involvement with European ven- tures will presumably slip away some- what. I still think that there may well prove to be limits beyond which the United Kingdom is not willing to go partly because it is concerned, and there is a delicate balancing problem here, about the price you are prepared to pay, but it is nevertheless concerned about its own economic basis, the technological basis and the fate of its industry. Second, it has to consider always the problems of succeeding generations of equipment and where they fall due, and so on. The opportunity of setting off on CO- operative venture with particular nations sometimes simply does not appear to arise.
24. Only last month we went up to Warton and saw the MRCA fly there. We have been to Munich and seen it on the ground. This is one of the first developments of co-operation between three countries. This we feel as a com- mittee is good. With that you have to spend so much money in the long time it takes from the drawing board to its finally being flown by the forces, but I think this is a step in the right direc- tion. Would you agree?—I think so, yes.
Mr. Roper.
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25. Could I pursue that point in para- graph 16 where I think there may be a misprint in your paper. You were dis- cussing the savings on R and D, and other expenditure and you say in the second sentence, This is inevitable and "10 per cent. off" and pruning over- heads are as much as one should expect. Fortunately the shift to an almost ex- clusively European posture should pro- vide opportunities for some quite radical change in support arrangements, not least in several areas of welfare sup- port". Did you mean "welfare "?-
Yes.
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[Continued.
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26. Could you explain what welfare you are thinking of? Are we having common schools in Germany?--No, what I had in mind here is a rather more general thing. By "welfare support" I mean those support expenditures which essentially arise from the fact that you have a lot of people and a lot of fami- lies to look after and have nothing to do with direct or indirect combat sup- port sustaining the combat formations and it seems to me many of our arrange- ments were geared to armed forces which would be deployed overseas, often East of Suez, and we needed to create the apparatus which could, as it were, pick itself up and go and operate in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and so on. It may be that if the options for station- ing are the United Kingdom and West Germany, then one can ask some quite fundamental questions about, for ex- ample, how often do you move people around. The 2 year tour has a lot to do with the rotation of units from the home base and outside Europe. To what extent do you have to create a self- contained military cantonment, with its own arrangements for the care of the body, the soul and the mind, if you care to think of all those things? I think there are opportunities anyway now that this shift has been made to ask, could we not move to operating on a quite different basis in some of these areas with greater integration with civil pro- vision in many cases which would in fact enable support economies to be effected.
Mr. Conlan.] I want to raise a number of questions.
Chairman.] I have to guard the time. We have not yet had much from Mr. Greenwood about the December pro- posals and what his thoughts are there.
Mr. Conlan.] Before we get to that I would like to ask a question. I would have thought that was a suitable section for conclusion of this particular set of evidence.
Chairman.] We are not far from the end now.
Mr. Conlan.
27. My question will not last more than two minutes on the aspect I want to raise with Mr. Greenwood, that is
No comments yet.
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