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Defence: Spending Review and Aircraft Carriers

My Lords, like my noble and gallant friend Lord Bramall, I welcome much in the Statement, and I am sure that it will give particular pleasure to the Royal Navy. Like my noble and gallant friend, I am minded of the descriptions of ““affordability”” used in the Ministry of Defence. Can you afford it, or can you afford to give up what you have to give up in order to afford it? The decisions to buy this expensive equipment, like the decisions to buy the expensive Eurofighter, the Astute submarine and the Trident replacement, were taken before current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan began. Frequently in this House, questions are asked about equipment related to that operation. I always remember talking to the divisional commander who went into Basra in the second Gulf War. I asked him, ““What was the battle-winning equipment as far as you were concerned?””. He replied, ““The American Marine air wing that was put under my command, because it had precisely the equipment that we needed for this type of operation, which was not available in our inventory””. Therefore, since the Minister mentioned the need to rebalance the programme, will that include taking into account the lessons from the current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the implications of those for our future equipment programme and its affordability?