asked the Secretary of State for Defence whether Her Majesty's Government are taking action to follow up the study conducted by the standing armaments committee of the Western European Union on the European armaments industries in order to gain maximum efficiency from military investment expenditure in the member countries.

We take every opportunity to seek cooperation with our European allies, particularly on equipment developments, in order to improve the benefits from our military expenditure. Information contained in this study by the standing armaments committee as well as related work by the independent European programme group and in other fora is taken into account during such discussions.