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Armed Forces: Future Defence Policy

I think that my noble friend is alluding to the point that several military commanders—this includes the Chief of the Defence Staff—while saying that we can never have enough helicopters, have also said that helicopters are not a panacea. I go back to the central point of my opening speech. It is very important that, in having an open and well informed debate on the complexity of issues that underpin defence today, we present the facts to the general public and insist that the media, when reporting these matters, fully describe that complexity. It is not the case that just increasing the number of helicopters would fix this problem. Increasing the number of helicopters would help this problem, but it needs to be done together with a number of other measures. I will write to the noble Lord on the specific point about the commercial supply alternative as soon as I can. I turn to the welfare of former servicemen.