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Armed Forces Personnel

Yes it has. Spending on the military has fallen from 2.9 to 2.5 per cent. of our gross domestic product—[Interruption.] I am not wrong. It has fallen by that amount during the past 10 years. That may not sound like a big percentage but it represents £5 billion in today's money, which could put right a lot of what is wrong in the armed forces, certainly when it comes to service accommodation. That leads me to the point about overstretch. I agree that many terms are used with regard to the concept of overstretch. The bottom line is that the armed forces receive about £5 billion less because of that decrease in spending as a percentage of GDP. That 0.4 per cent. drop in expenditure does not sound a lot, but that money would put right the Army's 4,000 personnel deficit: it does not sound a lot, but it has a big knock-on effect on deployment. When the Chief of the General Staff visited Parliament and made a presentation—if I remember correctly, the Minister was there—he said that the time spent on deployment was normally around 20 per cent. of total time. At the moment, the Army is running at 37 per cent. and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) pointed out, that over-deployment has been going on since 2002. The Chief of the General Staff made the point that that cannot continue indefinitely and we are reaching breaking point. Most recent figures show that most Army units now fail to meet the 24-month average interval between tours. That leaves units and individuals separated from their families for far too long, and training and recuperation inevitably suffer. We must also ensure that we supply our troops with the right equipment. Troops returning from theatre tell of life-threatening shortages of kit, including body armour, satellite phones, oil to prevent guns jamming and electronic equipment to detect roadside bombs—[Interruption.] I shall move on.