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Defence in the World

That soon! I have agreed to finish my speech shortly, and I am aware that I have not managed to reply on all the issues. The hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) recognised the huge improvements to vehicles that have been made, but he was very concerned about helicopters. We will soon have a Merlin free to go to Afghanistan, and before the end of the year we will have eight Chinook too. There has been a massive increase in the number of hours of helicopter availability, but we can never have enough helicopter lift and I accept that we need to do all that we can to provide it.