Luke Pollard

I would be surprised if the hon. Member was advocating for another position on that point. At the risk of getting another intervention from the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello), I will finish the point on procurement. In the defence industrial strategy, which is a good read if he has not been through it, we have set out the ambition that was mentioned in the SDR of improving our procurement times. That means large, complex programmes that take five or six years on average going to two years; two-year programmes going to one year; and one-year programmes going down to a few months to six months. That is a big change in terms of how we procure, and it is a fundamental part of the decisions that will be coming out of the defence investment plan. Rather than looking at the procurements that started under the previous Government—and as the House will know, the new medium helicopter began in February 2024—we continued. That is because, once a procurement policy has started, it is best practice to continue it with the rules of the road that were in place at the point where the procurement began; otherwise, it can be opened up to legal challenge and so on. To address the point that the hon. Member for Yeovil mentioned about pressing ahead, we pressed ahead with that procurement because it had begun and it was in train. That was the right thing to do, because the sense from industry and from the MOD was that restarting it carried greater risk than bringing it to a conclusion. The framing, setting, financing, financial arrangements and specifications were all set by the previous Government in relation to the new medium helicopter. Finally, I will deal with the intervention from the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome), before returning to the point raised by the hon. Member for Yeovil. The challenge about whether we will always need crewed helicopters is a live one. If we look more broadly at our transition from crewed systems to autonomous systems, the SDR sets out very clearly that, at this period in time, the Government will invest in a mix of crewed, uncrewed and autonomous systems with a greater drive to autonomy, which not only increases lethality and mass, but provides jobs and growth opportunities. We know our adversaries are investing in similar technologies, so the question about the crewed, uncrewed and autonomous mix is a live one. That brings me nicely to the point that the hon. Member for Yeovil mentioned around Proteus, which is a brilliant example of how investment in new technologies can deliver more change. It is a good project, which was funded by the Ministry of Defence through our work with UK Defence Innovation and was delivered by Leonardo. It is a sign of our strong partnership with Leonardo that we collaborated on the Proteus project, which experiments with a future rotary wing uncrewed air system. I have spoken to Leonardo about not naming helicopters after our ships. I would also like to get to a point where we stop naming things after bad guys in science-fiction movies, such as Skynet from “The Terminator” films, which is the name for our satellite communications systems, or giving things existing names. However, the technology is outstanding. That is an area that provides huge growth opportunities for British industry, including, potentially, for Leonardo, subject to the usual competitive tendering processes around Proteus in the future. It is a good example of how an autonomous full-size helicopter can be demonstrated, but the mix that we are looking for in the strategic defence review is a mix of crewed, uncrewed and autonomous systems as we move in that direction. The investment that Leonardo has made in uncrewed and autonomous systems is to be welcomed.