---

Defence Procurement

I am in the fortunate position of not being party to the sums, which is a great thing when one is speaking about defence. None of my argument in respect of the carriers is about saving money; it is about having the right kit. The hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) raises a fundamental point. In defence now, we have to do the right thing. If the uniforms in Chorley are not the right ones for the Army to buy, we must say, "Even though we all love the hon. Gentleman with a passion and think that he has a spiffing constituency and they are jolly good people who make the kit, we are going to give the contract to someone else—very sorry." We need to make a whole lot of those decisions, which will be very uncomfortable for whoever comes into power.