asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence what progress is being made with the manufacture and issue of the new rifle.

Five thousand rifles have been ordered from Belgium for troop trials. It is hoped that five hundred will be delivered in July and the rest before the end of the year. Production has not yet started in this country.

Are the factories here tooling up for manufacture?

Pre-production planning is going on, but we do not want to go into production until the troop trials are completed.