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Iran: HMS ““Cornwall””

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating a Statement made in another place. I also thank him for putting in the organisation and applying the pressure that I know were needed to enable eight Members of the House of Lords last night to receive not just a briefing but copies of the full report and the full list of actions that will take place to rectify the criticisms that came out of the report. The CDS was present, as was the Minister, and we were there for over two hours. I believe our questions were answered in a very open way. I did not have the impression that any one of the eight of us came away from that briefing with the view that General Fulton’s report was a whitewash or less than thorough. I thank the Minister for that. However, many areas needed attention. Training was one of them. If, like me, noble Lords have been close to the services and have always admired the high standard of their training, it will come as something of a disappointment that that was one of the areas of criticism. I welcome the intention to rectify that. Will the Minister confirm, as he did earlier, that there will be monitoring of this and reporting back not only to the House of Lords defence group—which is not a Select Committee, although a number of us feel that there should be a defence Select Committee in this House—but perhaps to this House as well? The statements by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, while good stuff to laugh at when they are made, in no way caricature the true image of our Armed Forces, particularly the Navy. Indeed, that kind of statement is both cheap talk and outrageous when the young men and women of our Armed Forces are out there as we are talking, risking their lives, day in and day out, in the Middle East.