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Future Defence Programme

I thank the Defence Secretary for his statement and for advance sight of it. Nobody will argue against the new equipment that will go to our front-line troops in Afghanistan and the additional capability that it will give them, but one must inevitably ask some questions about the details. The most eye-catching is the order for 22 new Chinook helicopters, of which the first will arrive in 2012-13. But how many will really arrive in 2013, when will the others get there and how does that fit in with President Obama's timeline of beginning the withdrawal from July 2011? Would it not have helped if this decision had been taken a good deal earlier? Does this not prove the folly of the 2004 cuts in the helicopter budget? We will all feel sorry for the Secretary of State because the Treasury has made him come here today, raiding core defence budgets to pay for these additional orders. What sense does it make for these decisions to be taken outwith the strategic context of the strategic defence review, which everybody is signed up to after the election? What will be the additional cost to the long-term defence budgets, and what will be the diminution of our core capability? In 2001, we entered Afghanistan, and in 2003 we entered Iraq. The fact of the matter is that the fighting has been done on the cheap ever since. It is true that the Treasury has supplied UORs, but the fact of the matter is that the core defence budget has been creaking under the strain of these engagements ever since they began. The Secretary of State and the Ministry have tried to put off painful decisions until after the general election, but today harsh reality has caught up with them.