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Defence Policy

We would love to have had a widespread debate on this issue in a general election—if only the Government had had the courage to call one. As they say in fashion circles, ““This year, Brown is the new yellow.”” Who am I to comment on that? Last week, we had an interesting debate on procurement, which some hon. Members present today attended. The point was made on several occasions about the difficulty of assessing the defence budget in the UK compared to other countries. For example, it is impossible for us to know what the commitment is for the years ahead. We asked specific questions, the answers to which are needed for the House to have a sensible debate. However, when we asked about the carriers, for example, the answer was that disclosure of the detailed estimated annual costings over the five-year period for the procurement would likely prejudice the commercial interest and cannot be provided. On the future rapid effect system, or FRES, the answer was that details would prejudice the commercial interest and cannot be provided. The House would benefit from knowing the figures and being able to examine what is in the pipeline for front-line procurement. Only when we know the details will we know what we definitely want to commit to and what the necessary expenditure would be. If the Government were to make all those figures available to the House—I intend to ask the Public Accounts Committee to obtain them—we could have a much better debate. It would be foolish for the Opposition to make estimates or commit to figures without having full access to the books. We would want to institute immediately a proper strategic defence review, which we have not had for 11 years now, to see what we believe the future shape of our armed forces should be. As the shadow Chancellor has said, when we see what we need to spend for our defence, we can decide appropriately.