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Business of the House

I fondly imagined that my change of position after the general election would relieve me of the pleasurable responsibility of responding to the hon. Gentleman on defence matters. I am delighted that he has continued to haunt me with these issues, and I assure him that there has been no change in the Government's position in respect of the commitment made in the 1998 strategic defence review to acquire two large aircraft carriers. He will understand that it takes a little longer to build those carriers in reality than may have been the case when he used to build their Airfix equivalents.