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Defence Policy

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, although one of the Afghan national army's strengths has been that it is drawn from all over and is not always deployed using people in their own areas. Indeed, that is one of its strengths over the Afghan police, which tend to be used in their own areas, which seems to account for some of the suggestions sometimes made that they seem to be corrupt, as are others in parts of the Afghan structure. As I mentioned earlier, we will have a strategic defence and security review after the election. Some of the preparatory work is being done on that now, and I welcome the fact that all parties have been invited to cast their eyes over it. I have said that I think that everything must be included, and I simply cannot see the logic in conducting a strategic defence review and not including the consideration of our future nuclear capability and what we will do beyond the lifetime of the existing Trident programme. That is not to say that we should jump to conclusions now, before the event, about what the SDR might conclude. It seems baffling, however, that one of the most significant programmes, militarily, and one of the biggest, financially, should be excluded from an otherwise seemingly comprehensive review. I urge the Government to think again on this. The Gray report said that""we cannot fight the kind of unconventional expeditionary wars that have been the stuff of much of the last decade at the same time as providing the regeneration capacity across the full width of defence capabilities that keeps many critical military technologies within the UK, at anything like the current level of resources."" That sums up where we are very clearly. We must consider what we are good at, and what we want to develop. We cannot continue as a Jack of all trades. That is not in our interests, or in the interests of our allies. We also need to match our defence practices with our foreign policy ambitions. Governments of any complexion need to look at their wider policy in the context of what they can do with their allies. It is perfectly clear that the countries of Europe must do more of the heavy lifting. Between us, we need to share more of the burden in military matters. The Americans cannot be expected indefinitely to keep doing so much more than their fair share. We recognise the special relationship with America and we must seek to maintain it, but we cannot expect them indefinitely to continue to do as much as they do. Nor must we continue to follow American policy without questioning whether it is in our self-interest or within our capability to do so. For example, we went along with missile defence under Bush, and now we are going along with Obama, who has decided—quite rightly, in my view—to dispense with it. We need a far clearer idea of what our policy objectives are. We need to reappraise our relationships with others to ensure not only that we get the most out of those relationships but that the allies get the most out of their relationships with us. I should like to acknowledge the fact that the British Legion came to all the party conferences during the conference season and called on politicians to "do their bit" for the armed forces. Today's debate is not predominantly about the armed forces, but we should all take seriously the need to renew the military covenant. Taking seriously today's report on the way in which we support our armed forces with equipment will be a critical part of that. The Gray report is welcome and timely, and it says what many people have believed for a long time. We welcome the Government's suggestion that they will accept some of its recommendations, but we are going to need to see what action they take in practice as a result of the report. We all know that dramatic changes are needed in the Ministry of Defence and in the wider defence policy, and we need to work to realise those changes, to ensure that our troops are properly protected and supported, that the country has a realistic defence agenda and that the necessary resources are put in place to make a reality of it.