Parliamentary clash
Mark Pritchard continues to badger the government on the rising cost of DTR. He submitted a written question:
To ask the Secretary of State for
The reply from the government was:
The St. Athan Defence Training Academy is a very important project for
On the 28th January the following oral exchange was recorded in Hansard:
Mark Pritchard (Wrekin)
John Smith has claimed many times that hundreds of jobs will come to Wales as a result of the defence training review programme, but the programme has rising costs and increasing delays. Indeed, in his desperation, the hon. Gentleman visited the Prime Minister this week, even though the latter has given no assurance that the defence training review will go ahead in
Paul Murphy (Secretary of State,
I have had no indication at all that there will be any change of plan as far as that huge investment in
John Smith (Vale of Glamorgan)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that employment levels in south
Paul Murphy (Secretary of State,
That is what we all like to hear. My hon. Friend has been a great champion of the project. When those jobs come to
Clearly John Smith is still playing his role of drummer boy for METRIX, but his figures are as credible as his knowledge of defence training. John Smith recently talked about the need to get away from “chalk and talk” training- it shows how little he knows about the modern training environment. PCS believes not only do his 5,000 jobs include over a 1,000 military posts- which to the public are hardly countable, but also many of the jobs Smith continually mentions are transitory jobs created during the build phase.
