Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps he is taking to improve the (a) competitiveness and (b) penetration of defence exports. [9356]

Mr Gerald Howarth MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence: This Government aim to increase Britain's defence exports. The United Kingdom Trade and Investment Defence and Security Organisation (UKTI DSO) is responsible for promoting British defence industry overseas under the Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills. The interests of the Ministry of Defence are recognised under a service level agreement with UKTI.

This Government have publicly stated that we wish to re-energise Government support to defence exports. This is because exports help to secure high skilled British defence manufacturing jobs and to reduce the unit costs of Ministry of Defence acquisition projects through increased production runs.

We also recognise defence exports make an important contribution to achieving wider defence diplomacy objectives.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Fox) and I are looking at a number of ways we can achieve this. Ensuring British defence equipment remains competitive is essential to achieving a greater share of the defence market. We have established our five criteria against which future equipment programmes will be assessed, as set out in the speech my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology (Peter Luff) gave at Dynamic Vehicle Demonstration (DVD) on 23 June 2010 which is freely available at:

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/People/Ministers/MinisterForDefenceEquipmentSupportAnd Technology.htm

This Government recognise that Government support can be an extremely important factor in making British industry successful overseas. It is our intention to work to achieve greater support to exports while maximising the benefits and value for money to the taxpayer.