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Defence Policy

I am not sure whether to thank my hon. Friend for what he has said, as he is only half proud of what we did. One thing that we did was appoint better advisers than the Mood’s, and we gave the MOD a rough time. However, we recognised that much had happened with compensation and other forms of benefit. Much has been done, but more remains to be done. We can never be absolutely happy until members of our armed forces who have been injured are properly compensated, regardless of whether they were injured while facing the enemy, in peacetime operations or while serving at home; we owe them a debt of honour. They must be properly compensated not only so that we can be happier about that and our consciences can be clearer, but so that more people will be prepared to join the armed forces. We must examine how our defence forces are evolving, the equipment we are purchasing, the training we are doing, the alliances of which we are a part, and whether our Government are displaying political wisdom in respect of our allies and potential adversaries—we hope that they are. In doing so, we must move beyond the immediate future. I recall Ministers such as Archie Hamilton—a great guy—coming before the Defence Committee, and our saying, ““Minister, you are thinking about the fact that the Soviet Union has now collapsed, but is the threat to the UK over? Why are you rushing to cut regiments? Why are you cutting defence expenditure? History teaches us that, regrettably, war is sometimes inevitable.””