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Foreign Affairs and Defence

I am delighted to assure the Secretary of State that I shall not complain about his answering the questions put by my right hon. and hon. Friends, but let me put this question to him. He has asserted that the chiefs of staff are happy, yet he himself set out in the strategic defence review that there should be 32 surface vessels. The Government are now proposing to reduce those to 25. I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman talk to Sir Alan West, the First Sea Lord, and sees what he thinks about that reduction, because he has said that it puts him in a difficult position and he wants to know which tasks he will have to forgo in order to meet his tasks with a substantially reduced surface fleet.