My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to air the Question for Short Debate in my name on the Order Paper, and to the Minister for finding time to answer this debate.

For more than 100 years, the people of Yeovil and south Somerset have provided the nation and its allies with world-beating aircraft, which have played an immense part in the defence of our shores and of our values. Yeovil-built aircraft were among the first to fly in battle over the Western Front in the First World War and provided the first-ever air support to the Royal Navy. Westland Lysanders flew our secret agents into every corner of occupied Europe in World War II. Westland helicopters dropped me on Jebel tops in Arabia, plucked me out of clearings in the Borneo jungle and gave us the mobility we needed in Northern Ireland. They did the same in Afghanistan, Iraq and every other conflict zone.

This debate is not just about the past and celebrating that record; it is also about the future. As we rely more on Special Forces, they will rely more on helicopters for long-range insertion. As the Royal Marines end assaults across defended beaches, helicopters will be the only means to land men in numbers where the enemy least expects them. As the Russian submarine threat grows, it is rotary wing which will arm our ships with the best means of detection and response. Then again, this debate is not just about what our Armed Forces need. It is also about an irreplaceable national aerospace asset. The rotary wing skills found in the Yeovil workforce, now at Leonardo, are found nowhere else in Britain so surely we in Yeovil must feel pretty confident about what comes next. Our brilliant design and engineering teams must surely feel secure about their future. No, they do not. They are beginning to leave in increasing numbers and there is a clear reason for that.

Despite many requests from me and, I am assured, from Yeovil’s Member of Parliament, Marcus Fysh, the Government have made no clear commitment so far as part of the national industrial strategy that they wish to sustain this unique sovereign ability to design, engineer and manufacture our own rotary aircraft. This doubt about the Government’s intentions began when the Ministry of Defence abandoned the policy of the coalition Government, who insisted that an order for Apache aircraft must be subject to a proper competitive tendering process. This included Westland, as it was then. They replaced this with a decision to buy off the shelf and without competitive tender from the United States.

Since then, it pains me to say that every procurement action of the Government has reinforced the suspicion that the Ministry of Defence prefers to buy new aircraft from abroad rather than to make them ourselves, even if the consequence is that a vital national asset is lost and the Yeovil site degenerates, as it threatens to do, into simply a repair and maintenance facility. Over the years Yeovil-built aircraft have been sold to more than 20 countries. They are one of the nation’s major exporters, but what export customers now say—and one cannot blame them—is that if the British Government will not buy helicopters made in Britain, why on earth should they? This is damaging export prospects.

Let me make it clear that this is not a problem for today. The shop floor at Leonardo Helicopters UK in Yeovil has plenty of work for the moment. What we are short of is the engineering work needed now to prepare for and build the new aircraft for the future. What we need is a commitment from the Government that they prefer to buy the next range of aircraft from UK production rather than from abroad.

I cannot believe that this Government wish to preside over the disappearance of a key national capability and prefer to make our Armed Forces dependent on foreign skills when we have such an abundance of our own. I cannot believe that this Government wish to destroy export opportunities post-Brexit, yet that is where we are heading. If this is not what the Government want, it is time to make that clear—and urgently.

Leonardo’s very clear statements on this as recently as this week in Farnborough make that abundantly clear and also make the danger abundantly clear. I am assured that it is waiting to make the investment necessary in research and development, infrastructure and skills to maintain the long-term integrity of Yeovil’s design and engineering teams. However, as Leonardo’s managing director said this week at Farnborough:

“We need some clear commitment …We need to maintain the design and development capability of our work force”.

There you have it absolutely clearly. I appeal to the Government to make this statement without delay—today for preference, in the modernising defence paper due, I hear, by the end of the month if they must, or in the Budget as a last resort. I have to warn them that if this, or something along these lines, does not come by the end of the year, the crucial decisions Leonardo needs to make may not be made, the erosion of Yeovil’s skill base will continue to accelerate and a national strategic industrial asset will stand in grave jeopardy.

In his answer the Minister may stress the Government’s strategic partnership agreements—the so-called SPAs—and may even announce a new one. SPAs are useful and very welcome but they are not the answer. In their present form, SPAs have no impact on the procurement process. That is where we need the action. As part of the Government’s policy to maintain a national capability in the design and production of warships and combat jets, front-line commanders are required to consider indigenous industrial capability in making procurement decisions. This is what is needed and what has been so significantly absent in relation to rotary wing.

Let me sum up by laying out what is at risk here. It is always looks cheaper to buy off the shelf, but in this case that would be, in the long term, far more expensive as we lose high-value jobs, export opportunities and a key national asset. It is not just Yeovil and the south Somerset community that stand to suffer from this. Thousands of jobs and substantial high-value, high-tech industrial production elsewhere in the country are already also at risk. Leonardo in Yeovil currently spends more than a third of a billion pounds with suppliers all across the UK, 30% of them small and medium-sized enterprises. In the south of England alone the total value of subcontract business dependent on Yeovil amounts to £275 million pounds—almost a quarter of a billion.

What I am asking is simple and straightforward. The Government have a strategy for preserving our sovereign capacity in the production of fast combat jets, and they have one to preserve our ability to build warships. What we need now and urgently is a clear statement from them that they value and will preserve Britain’s sovereign capability to design, engineer and manufacture our future rotary-wing aircraft. A key national aerospace industrial asset providing the best for our Armed Forces, a workforce whose skills have served the defence of the nation for over 100 years, export opportunities and tens of thousands of high-tech jobs right across the country depend on this. I hope we shall hear it tonight.