My Lords, I shall speak relatively briefly—I hope—to this order. I declare an interest as chair of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group. My noble friend who spoke a moment ago was chair of that group previously. It gives us, I believe, an important perspective on the remarkable strengthening of the UK-Japan relationship over this last decade, which we should certainly treasure. As I have this opportunity, I join in welcoming the noble Baroness to the Government front bench and wishing her very well.

I do not want to talk about the capability of the GCAP or Tempest—not least coming after the noble and gallant Lord—as I think we are all agreed about its vital importance as a bridge to the kind of defence and security challenges we may face in the middle of this century, or from 2035 if the in-service date is 2035. However, we can already see, not least in the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, just how important it is to have air superiority and to be able to control, as Tempest will, the many unmanned aerial vehicles and the scope and range of the responsibilities that pilots of Tempest will have in the future, and how impossible it would be to engage in any conflict successfully without that kind of air superiority which Tempest can provide.

In relation to this order, as the noble Baroness quite rightly said in her introduction, it is clearly necessary for the implementation of the convention, and I think we are very much looking forward to having GIGO in the UK as the headquarters and to supporting from that headquarters the industrial partnership that is already demonstrating its economic importance in this country. I just want to focus on the relationship of this order to the convention. The order is necessary for its implementation. We are, as I understand it, the first of the three partners to undertake an order of this kind, and we are looking forward to ratification in the autumn.

I remind the House that, on 9 April, the International Agreements Committee published its eighth report, which was on the GIGO convention. Without quoting it at length, paragraph 50 in particular made a recommendation relating to the extent of the privileges and immunities and its interaction with the headquarters of GIGO in this country. My point is not really to discuss that but to say, as a former member of the International Agreements Committee, that we secured the “Grimstone rule”, which says that if a committee of this House—in this case, appropriately, the International Agreements Committee—makes a report drawing an international agreement, such as this convention, to the special attention of the House, the agreement should be given time for a debate in this House prior to ratification. The FCDO is clearly the responsible department in relation to international agreements, so I simply ask the noble Baroness whether she will restate the Government’s commitment to respond to that report and to arrange time for a debate in this House on the convention prior to ratification.

Finally, there was a good, useful and interesting debate in the other place on 24 July. I share with my good and Honourable Friend Dr Andrew Murrison, who was a former Defence Minister, the statement he made at col. 694:

“No Government in their right mind would cancel this project”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/7/24; col. 694.]

I do not think that is really the issue. The issue is that our Japanese colleagues would very reasonably understand that a new Government must assess the strategic defence environment with which they are faced and the priorities that they must attach in their strategic defence review. I think they would wish, where there are clearly leading defence priorities, of which I think it is widely held this is one, that that is made clear by the Government at the earliest possible stage, and in particular that nothing is done as a consequence of the SDR that would imperil the timetable—clearly, the Government are getting on with this order—of the implementation of the convention and its ratification and, of course, most importantly, the development of the programme and the in-service date of 2035. If they can see that the British Government are not prejudicing any of the operational and implementation aspects of the convention or the GCAP project, I think they will completely understand the importance of this Government having a modicum of time in which to assess their own defence priorities.

However, subject to that, I hope that the House will approve the order and we can see the GIGO established in this country as soon as possible.