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Defence in the United Kingdom

I have been intervened on Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I do not know whether you are going to allow me to continue this debate. There is a simple way of proceeding. I do not want to raise the temperature, but we are talking about our armed forces and how we best serve them. The hon. Gentleman could simply say that he was sorry that he made those intemperate remarks, which were inappropriate and a terrible slur on one of the finest soldiers of his generation. The hon. Gentleman may well look forward to the meeting but, if I know General Sir Mike Jackson, he should do so with some trepidation. He can be very robust when it comes to saying what he thinks, but an apology in a public forum such as this would not go amiss. I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman if he wants to apologise now. The hon. Gentleman remains in his seat, so it is clear that he does not want to apologise. His remarks therefore remain on the record. I look forward to seeing the minutes of his meeting with the general, if I am able to do so. The role of defence in the UK is to ensure that the armed forces are structured, trained and equipped to meet the challenges that they face today and will face tomorrow. We need to ensure that every penny that we spend is spent wisely, in support of the front line. At the same time, we must provide support to our personnel and their families to enable them to focus on the job at hand.That is no small task. Our annual budget is about £28 billion and we employ more than 270,000 people. Indirectly, we support a further 400,000 jobs in the defence industry. Against that background, I want to take the opportunity provided by today’s debate to describe the progress we are making in delivering on our commitment to the armed forces. I also want to talk about the role that the armed forces play within the UK. The pace of change across the globe is remorseless, and with change comes new challenges for our armed forces. We must ensure that they are properly structured to meet those challenges, and that is precisely what we are doing—no more so than in respect of the Army.In December last year, the then Secretary of State announced that we would rebalance the Army to develop a more deployable, agile and flexible force—a force better able to meet the challenges and threats of the 21st century. This is known as the future army structure. We are now moving ahead to implement those changes, which will make the Army a more balanced, robust and resilient force. On 1 August, we announced the start of full security normalisation in Northern Ireland. That will allow the reinvestment of posts back into the Army, to make it better suited to meet the enduring expeditionary operations that have characterised our deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years. As a result of the progress in Northern Ireland, the Army can reinvest more than 2,500 posts into specialist capabilities, including communications, engineering, logistics and intelligence, while making the infantry more robust. Continued progress in Northern Ireland, coupled with the end of the infantry arms plot—the process by which infantry battalions used to completely re-role, retrain and relocate every few years—is allowing the Army to reduce the number of infantry battalions by four. Under the existing system, up to 20 per cent. of the Army is unavailable for deployment. With the end of the arms plot, we will have more battalions available at any one time.