UK Parliament / Open data

Defence Reform Bill

Proceeding contribution from Jim Murphy (Labour) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 16 July 2013. It occurred during Debate on bills on Defence Reform Bill.

I take your strictures about our not using the speeches we intend to give tomorrow, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am not making a speech tomorrow—my hon. Friends will be speaking then—so I thought I would say it today.

The point I am making is about procurement, GoCo and DE&S-plus, and the complexity of the deterrent programme in that process. However, what we have learnt today is that the Lib Dem part of the Government has taken two years to review a policy and spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money, only to conclude that the Lib Dems’ past policy was unachievable. Today they appear to have managed to advocate both a Trident-based system and part-time unilateralism simultaneously. That is a real achievement. The British people will marvel at the incompetence of suggesting that we should pay tens of billions of pounds to send boats to sea, while the media are now being briefed that on occasion they will not even carry missiles. That is like someone having a new, expensive burglar alarm at their home with no batteries and a sign above the door saying, “Come on in—no one’s at home”.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

566 c970 

Session

2013-14

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
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