Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

I remind the House of my interest as chairman of the Reserve Forces 2030 review. If we are to meet the ambitions of the integrated review, we need to find better ways to share skills between the private sector and defence. One way is the use of the sponsored reserve—for example, the Voyager programme, whereby Airbus engineers service the aircraft during the week then don their uniforms at weekends, giving an assured capability. That is, however, an underutilised resource, with fewer than 1,500 instances across defence. Is now the time to ensure that all future major defence contracts include a provision for sponsored reserves?