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Armed Forces Personnel

I start by declaring my registered interest as an officer in the Royal Naval Reserve. I welcome the opportunity to debate our armed forces today. I pay tribute to the men and women who serve our country so well under the most difficult circumstances. I also pay tribute to our Defence Ministers—I had not realised how hard they work, but the Library informs me that they responded to no less than 4,592 questions in the previous Session. We can debate the quality of some of the answers; nevertheless, that is a lot questions. The breakdown is even more interesting: 2,853 questions were asked by Conservatives and only 605 by the mighty Labour party. Even the Liberal Democrats did better than Labour Members. Given the interest from Labour Members, we should not be too surprised that the Government Whips could not muster more foot soldiers, even if quantity is offset by quality. I thank Ministers for adopting suggestions floated by the Leader of the Opposition's military covenant commission. Imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery, and we welcome some of the familiar good ideas that appear in the service personnel Command Paper—transferable waiting lists are a particular favourite of mine. My right hon. Friend's commission, which is chaired by Frederick Forsyth and staffed by a wide range of experts, including Simon Weston, has made an important contribution to the debate, as has the service personnel Command Paper. We owe a debt of gratitude to all involved, and the service community has welcomed both papers. I want to mention some of the issues that they raised. First, it is worth reminding ourselves of the provenance of today's debate. Before Christmas and on 13 January, the Leader of the House conceded that the subject matter for consideration today should be broad, as is traditional in such debates, subject, of course, to Mr. Speaker's discretion. Clearly, we can no more discuss armed forces personnel without mentioning equipment than we can discuss doctors and nurses without mentioning hospitals, or teachers without mentioning schools. The Leader of the House understood that full well. In December, our soldiers, sailors and airmen learned from a written statement of the revised in-service date for important bits of military hardware. Perhaps the Minister will now admit that the bumping of the naval programme, with all its defence posture, training, personnel and career implications, had nothing to do with the availability of aircraft, and everything to do with the Government's desperate financial situation. Apparently, we cannot use the word ““carrier””, but suffice it to say that grey, flat-topped things displacing 65,000 tonnes take some bumping—