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Defence Policy

I am sure that the Secretary of State would agree that until we reach the point that he has just described, we need to ensure that we have enough troops in theatre to carry out the task that is asked of them. At the height of the troubles, we had more than 20,000 troops in Northern Ireland. As he is well aware, Helmand province is nearly twice the size of Northern Ireland and Wales put together. The announcement of an extra 500 troops smacks of too little, too late, given the scale of the task. When will he deploy a substantial number of troops—more troops—to Helmand province, as requested by the military? If he does not do that, overstretch will continue to cost lives unnecessarily.