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Defence in the UK

Yes, of course. I was extremely interested in that part of my hon. Friend's speech in which he talked about the importance of clearing and detecting mines around our shores. That issue deserves far more attention and research, and we must undertake, too, practical detection and destruction of those mines. Doubtless, we shall return to the matter. There are new aspects to defence that we did not think about very much before the last decade. We have to think afresh, as we and other European nations need to define our defence in new terms. Obviously, homeland security and territorial defence are vital, but increasingly we have to think in defence terms about energy infrastructure protection, from gas and oil pipelines to wind farms and nuclear power stations. While the politics of energy may dominate in our part of north-west Europe, there are other parts of Europe where the politics of water and food is increasingly important. As the climate change crisis climbs the political agenda, carbon emissions will threaten peace and stability. Poverty and economic migration already cause great friction between states—the day of state-on-state war is not necessarily over. I should like to turn to some of the extraordinary things going on in the UK against all the odds to improve the equipment used by our armed forces. I should like to begin in my own constituency at Boscombe Down airfield, which I visited only last Friday, where I saw for myself the extraordinary work of the dedicated and experienced work force that is under way to convert the eight Chinooks, for which we have been waiting for so long. The Sea Kings are being fitted with Carson blades, which will allow them to be used in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and the Nimrods are being worked on.