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Defence Policy

Will the Secretary of State understand that such hibernation of skills—of the sort that the Public Accounts Committee's report on support for high-intensity operations highlighted—may be accommodated in the regular forces, although the impact on our generic war-fighting capability would be severe enough, but cannot be accommodated in the reserve forces? Reserves will simply walk: training is what they do, and it holds them in. Does he not understand that this decision will be a huge blow to morale, and that reserve forces, on whom we depend so much, are likely simply to fade away?