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Defence Procurement

I understand my hon. Friend’s arguments, with which we have a lot of sympathy, as well as her impatience. She has already received considerable reassurances from my ministerial colleagues—from the Minister for the Armed Forces as well as from Secretary of State—and more detail will be forthcoming before too long, but there are difficult commercial negotiations in process at the present time, so I hope she will understand that we should not go further than we have for the moment. The right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), who is Chairman of the Select Committee, accused us, if I heard him correctly, of providing for current wars, but failing to provide for future wars. I think that that is a completely unfair criticism. It is entirely what the urgent operational requirements programme is all about, and that UOR programme is in addition to the core defence budget, which is focused on the long-term contingency liabilities that our defence forces might face.