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Defence Procurement

I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s arguments—I fully understand them. However, today I have heard a debate about costs, timely procurement and meeting forces’ expectations quickly, and the arguments that he has advanced militate against achieving those objectives. If we allow decisions about kit specifications to rest entirely with the armed forces, we will experience the problems about which we have heard, especially those that the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex enunciated. Expectations change faster than the time that lags between placing an initial order and delivery. There are great merits in a common European platform for standard core kit. One benefit of a standard core kit is supporting common European deployments. A good example of that is the humanitarian role that we played in Chad, where 26 countries were represented, all with their own pieces of kit—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) made a sedentary comment, which I did not hear. Does he wish to intervene?