Ministry of Defence

Of which the hon. Gentleman was, I think I can fairly say, a distinguished ornament.

I put it to the Procedure Committee, and it recommended to the Backbench Business Committee, that...

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and thank him for achieving this debate. Is he...

Well, I think it is very nice that we have such an impressive Minister as the Under-Secretary of ...

On that introduction, how could I fail to get to my feet? The Defence Secretary sends his apologi...

I am grateful for that.

Given our commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence, as is required ...

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for the way he has introduced the debate. ...

That is an extremely good point, and if I have time I will deal with amphibious capacity later in...

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He says that the Government are committed to ...

That is an extremely good point, and I will come on to deal with the people side.

As the De...

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way on that very important point and for his excellent intr...

That point on purchasing power is a very pertinent one. I hope that the Minister replies to it, b...

My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. Does he see the recently announced combat ai...

That is a good point. Again, I hope the Minister replies to it. It may be a case of when times ch...

One of the problems with being in a NATO alliance—I know this as a member of the NATO Parliamenta...

That is a very good point. With France, and after America, we are the leading military power in E...

The hon. Gentleman rightly identifies the potential difficulties on the north European plain. Sho...

Yes, I certainly think it should reconsider it. All the old, conventional threats are still very ...

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. He is absolutely right. In December 201...

That is a very good point and that was a worrying incident.

On recruitment and numbers, the...

My hon. Friend highlights a very important point. What I cannot understand is why it takes the be...

There is clearly a problem, one I hope the Minister will deal with later. Why does it take so lon...

Just before my hon. Friend moves on from the issue of recruitment, does he agree that the perform...

My right hon. Friend is of course a former Minister for the armed forces and really does know wha...

On retention, the hon. Gentleman referred to the reservists and the recruitment challenges that t...

That is a fair point. Pressures build on pressures.

In conclusion, the problems are many, b...

It is a great pleasure to follow the fantastic overview that the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Si...

What my hon. Friend is describing is fascinating. Does she agree that Army 2020 was really design...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What we have here is a consistent pattern of only about 15,00...

My hon. Friend has referred to the significant reductions in the regular forces. As was mentioned...

I intend to talk about the reserve bonus scheme in the next part of my speech. I am sure my hon. ...

My hon. Friend is making an important point about the numbers, but does she share my concern that...

My hon. Friend is right, and this is also making them so much easier to be bought off by companie...

Does my hon. Friend agree that we still need to do a lot more for people leaving the service? The...

I agree with my hon. Friend; it is difficult for people who have been in an all-encompassing envi...

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon). As a former Defence Minister,...

I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman is going to address our undersea cables and the risks p...

I am sure that the Minister may want to say something about that when he replies, but he will be ...

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and I am interested in his comments on rebuildi...

I agree with my hon. Friend. He is right that the Secretary of State for Defence announced the ne...

I am going to make a relatively brief contribution to this debate. I wish to make one simple poin...

The hon. Gentleman is making a good series of points about the outreach of the armed forces and t...

That point is extremely well made. I might say, for the amusement of the House, that when I was a...

Do you still use it?

Unfortunately, that uniform has shrunk over time.

We have heard so many times in this Chamb...

I might be a touch over-optimistic, but I get the impression that a sea change is going on, at le...

I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says about civil servants, but the decision to cut the defen...

Yes, and I will come to the issue of how we can use the percentage of GDP to track what has been ...

I partly take the right hon. Gentleman’s point, if he is looking back to 1963 and the role of suc...

I will not defend what happened in 2010. I was a shadow Defence Minister for slightly longer than...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I will give way to my good friend the deputy Chairman of the Committee in a moment.

I can r...

It is clear from the figures provided by the Library that while in most years there was an actual...

What I am looking for today is agreement across the House that we recognise that we should not be...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I will give way one more time, but I want to concentrate on the bigger picture, because frankly n...

The facts do not bear out what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. According to the Library, the ...

It depends whether the hon. Gentleman is talking about absolute figures or percentages of GDP spe...

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for the points he is making. We can starkly il...

The hon. Gentleman is a stalwart of the Committee. I hope that he will develop that important poi...

I want, first, to say something about spending and then to say a bit more about some of the point...

The hon. Gentleman will perhaps be surprised by how much I will say in my speech that—I hope—he a...

There we go—that is the power of Parliament. That is the point I am making. We had the debate bef...

It is not just the F-35. Much has been said in the past few weeks about the procurement of the ne...

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. That is the point of the debate on estimates days. For th...

The hon. Gentleman answers his own question in a way. He asked for, and supports, a fiscally open...

I will leave it there, but the Government need to have a better idea, and make it public to the S...

My hon. Friend has given two excellent examples. There are plans for a super-garrison at Catteric...

My hon. Friend gives another good example.

I have given the Minister a couple of examples, ...

Angus is proud of its long-standing ties to the armed forces, and it is vital for both the countr...

The scale of the cuts we have experienced in defence are genuinely endangering our ability and th...

Let us have the hon. and gallant Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty).

6.43 pm

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker. We are considering the way in which the Min...

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for giving way; he is making a powerful speech. What effect do...

My hon. Friend asks a pertinent question. It utterly diminishes the faith that our servicemen and...

I congratulate the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) on his introduction to the deb...

I just wish to correct a mistake by my hon. Friend: he missed out the word “deliberate” before “m...

It was a deliberate strategy, in the Cameron-Osborne Conservative party, to ignore the facts and ...

indicated assent.

The right hon. Gentleman is nodding. He and I kept raising that and asking why that decision had ...

My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that during a visit to the Boeing factory in Charles...

It is. As an example, we have to look only at the sale of Airbus in the United States market. As ...

Before the hon. Gentleman moves on from recruitment, may I ask whether he accepts that the other ...

That situation was predictable when the system was set up. What is worse, I have heard stories ab...

To give a personal example, I joined the Territorial Army with a good friend back in 2006, who we...

My hon. Friend raises a very good case from personal experience. This needs to be looked at. I wo...

I am sorry to hammer the nail, but this is very important, and we have the Secretary of State on ...

That prompts the question, “How are the tests being done, what criteria is being used and how are...

My hon. Friend makes a good point. If we do exactly what he says, we will be in a ludicrous posit...

I do not disagree with my hon. Friend, but that goes to the point—this was the problem back in 20...

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsboroug...

You’ve got the job.

If there is a job going, I will take it.

I should like to touch briefly on an extremely per...

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the debate, Mr Speaker. Let me also pay ...

Does my hon. Friend agree that when equipment such as ships is being ordered, the payback to the ...

Absolutely. My hon. Friend has made an excellent and salient point. He and I are both members of ...

I know that the hon. Gentleman has no intention of being churlish or unhelpful. He will, I am sur...

I do not accept that point. It was a Labour Government who, in 2005, introduced the first defence...

I cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood me. Perhaps I did not explain myself c...

That may have been a discrete maritime growth strategy, but the overall defence industrial strate...

During this debate, the subject of how much we should spend on defence and what we should be spen...

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I have no problem with it, but...

I agree. That was a decision of my party and the previous coalition Government, and I am taking a...

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andre...

Given what the hon. Gentleman has just said, does he support ending the Olympics, which are a com...

There is a great difference between nationalism and patriotism, which is far more wholesome. It i...

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out the difficulties that we can get into when we rob Peter ...

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, my colleague on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy...

It normally falls to the Scottish National party to break the consensual mood of these debates, b...

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Other hon. Members have raised the point—I think it is worth r...

I am quite confident that the Minister has heard my hon. Friend’s point, and that he will do just...

My hon. Friend makes a prescient point. At the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy ...

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I would hope that such a model could avoid some of the incredibl...

Brexit.

I understand that that is what caused it, but how did the MOD manage to get the calculations so b...

The hon. Gentleman makes a point about the impact on real defence spending of things such as curr...

There is nothing that I could add to make that point any better. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely...

The hon. Gentleman poses an interesting question. There was an SDSR in 2015, and the modernising ...

I rather suspect that I cannot get the Government not to go ahead with its modernising defence pr...

I welcome this opportunity to debate the MOD budget, and I thank the hon. Member for Gainsborough...

I thank my hon. Friend for visiting Plymouth at the weekend. Does she agree that we not only need...

My hon. Friend makes a valid point.

It is clear that the work strands of the review will lo...

It is a pleasure to respond to this debate. As others have done, I thank my hon. Friend the Membe...

The Minister is right in what he says, so what pressure is the UK putting on those other NATO nat...

I am pleased the Defence Secretary is in his place, because this is very much of concern to him, ...

That is all well and good, and all long term. Given that, why are the Government not sorting out ...

The right hon. Gentleman touches on something that I am not going to disagree with, but it is per...

Having all of those other worthy people involved does not get to grips with the problem of the he...

We have a programme—it is not fiscally neutral, as the last study was. This will allow us to make...

What the Minister has just said is very important. Will he confirm what he just said: that this m...

I can say it again and I think I am going to say it a bit later, because it is in my speech: I am...

rose—

I am not going to give way again. If I may, I will make some progress.

Let me make it clear...

rose—

I am not giving way at the moment. As I have said, as has the Defence Secretary, the programme is...

rose—

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not listen to what I am saying, because it is important a...

rose—

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman for the last time.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He says that this is fiscally neutral. He knows wha...

The hon. Gentleman should refer back to Hansard to understand what I have actually said. I shall ...

Will the Minister give way?

Let me finish this part of my speech, then I shall come back to the hon. Gentleman. I am surprise...

On the equipment plan, the Minister is right to say that the £20 billion black hole is the upper ...

We have only just completed the budget for 2017-18, and I should be clear that we have yet to emb...

I fully understand the direction of my right hon. Friend’s argument and I realise that it has bee...

My right hon. Friend hypothesises, but it is absolutely the case that we stand together to put fo...

This has been an historic debate. For the first time in nearly 60 years, the House of Commons has...