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Foreign Affairs and Defence

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for approaching a serious matter in a serious way, but will he acknowledge that one of the Government's mistakes was removing the single-service PR machine which built up its own strong relationships with the press and was extremely good at dealing with them? The press paid more attention to a single-service PR in uniform than to a civilian on operations. Will he consider again whether it is possible to reinstate those people? When he worries about leaks in the Ministry of Defence, he should bear in mind the fact that it is fine if there is a single-service PR machine because then people know perfectly well where the leaks are coming from and can deal with them.