---

Foreign Affairs and Defence

I fully intend to deal with the issue of DESO, but I will deal with it in my own time, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me. As I am talking about service personnel, I want at this point to refer to the support provided by the Government to service personnel and their families. A number of right hon. and hon. Members have been overtly critical, or have implied criticism, of it. What has been achieved recently bears repeating. This year, for example, our forces have received the best pay award in the public services—a headline figure of 3.3 per cent., with the most junior receiving over 9 per cent. I say to hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition Benches—and I see that it is all hon. Gentlemen there at the moment—that that 9 per cent. is important because it was designed to redress not just the imbalance that existed at the point of the award, but an imbalance that has existed for some considerable time. It is not only this Government's responsibility that an award was needed last year. Opposition Members should be honest about what they did, or did not do, during the time they had responsibility for the armed forces.