Dara, St Athan

EDM number 1827 in 2003-04, proposed by John P Smith on 26/10/2004.

That this House notes with concern the Ministry of Defence's preferred option of relocating almost the entire deep repair and maintenance of its fast jets in-house at RAF bases in England and away from the world-beating Defence Aviation Repair Agency (DARA) at St Athan, where this work is successfully undertaken by a highly trained workforce and where a publicly funded ú77 million hangar, purpose-built to repair these jets, is approaching completion; is further concerned that the review of air logistics, on which this option is based, ignores the strategic role given to DARA by Her Majesty's Government as recently as April 2001 to provide a competitive alternative to commercial sources of repair work, and furthermore makes no distinction between uniformed RAF personnel operating under a military code and civilians working in a competitive commercial environment; recognises that there is no military or economic case for this work to be undertaken by the RAF; believes that, if implemented, this option will inevitably result in a return to a costly and inefficient dependence on a single monopoly source of depth support from a private contractor as a direct consequence of asking our dedicated servicemen and women to try and emulate factory workers; and, in the interests of (a) front line capability, (b) the British taxpayer and (c) the future of the South Wales aviation industry, calls on the Government to reconsider this option.

This motion has been signed by a total of 26 MPs.