(DEFENCE AND EXTERNAL AFFAIRS SUB-COMMITTEE)
February, 1975.] Mr. A. P. HOCKADAY, C.B., C.M.G.,
[Continued.
Rear Admiral A. S. MORTON, Mr. T. CULLEN, Mr. D. M. EVANS, Mr. G. C. B. Dodds, Mr. A. R. M. JAFFRAY, Mr. J. D. BRYARS and Mr. T. C. G. JAMES, C.M.G.
possibility of exports? It could have some effect, it might be that we would be thinking in terms of equipment optim- ised for our own requirements and that one would think of a variant for a coun- try in another part of the world. We are aware that there is a problem here, not least because when a country is thinking of purchasing a piece of equip- ment one of the considerations that it bears in mind is whether this piece of equipment is being purchased and being tried out in the forces of the selling country.
Mr. Finsberg.] Like the maritime Harrier?
Mr. Roper.
164. Presumably one of the things which is at present at the research and development stage is the future main battle tank. Could we be told whether it is likely to be affected by the cuts?
(Mr. Bryars.) The provisional deci- sions taken in the Defence Review will not affect our programme of collabora- tion on the future main battle tank.
Sir Frederic Bennett.
165. There is not only the question of collaboration, but the implementation of collaboration? -That is correct.
Chairman.
166. Paragraph 37, the previous para- graph included a lot of items which were never really likely to appear in a firm programme. Now your list in annex A apparently accounts for about half the equipment savings. What other major equipment savings are there? Will the Chieftain be delayed?(Mr. Hocka- day.) In respect of the annex A items, we have given you in the supplementary memorandum a list of the savings that we estimate during the review period and, as you say, this comes to consider- ably less than the savings that we have talked about in paragraph 37. reason for this is to some extent linked with our discussion on paragraph 36 in that some of the savings which we have postulated have not yet been allocated to one particular project because particu- larly at the further end of the pro- gramme we realise it is too early yet to see which are going to be the winners and which are the ones we will wish to
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keep and which are the ones that will drop out of the programme at a certain stage. The other principal contributor to the remainder of the total savings is the whole host of smaller items which do not come into the category of the spectaculars that we have set out in annex A and in A15 of the supplementary memorandum.
Mr. Roper.
167. On the equipment budget, I re- cently saw some figures which suggested in 1971 we were spending a higher per- centage of our budget on equipment than most of our major European allies with the exception, perhaps, of France. This at first sight seems a little odd because one would expect, given we had higher manpower costs, that we do not have a conscripted army, that the share going to equipment would be lower than that of some of our allies. Are these cuts which are here proposed going to end up with a situation where a lower share of our budget will be on equipment than in the case of our principal allies?- -Tak- ing the first part of Mr. Roper's question first, again he was kind enough to give us notice of this one so we looked up the 1971 figures, we make the relative figures in 1971 on major equipments 14.9 per cent. for Britain, 11 per cent. for Germany and 14.4 per cent. for Italy. We have not got a figure for France, but if one included the French strategic nuclear force it would be much higher. There are two reasons why this is per- haps not altogether surprising. In the first place compared with the continental countries with their large armies a large proportion of our total defence budget. is spent on the equipment heavy services, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force which are the services in which major equipment forms a higher propor- tion of their total programme. Secondly, one would expect that a wholly profes- sional volunteer force would be more entirely equipped with a more sophisti- cated type of equipment than an army, a substantial proportion of which consisted of conscripts and perhaps not all of which would have such a clear cut war time role as is the case with our own army. It is the case that at the end of the review period we envisage the propor- tion of the total defence budget being
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