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Nimrod Review

My Lords, as a rifleman, I join in the condolences for the families of two members of my regiment who were killed in Afghanistan yesterday. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen of Pimlico, and my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig, I am particularly concerned about a very disappointing admission in the Statement: namely, the very serious blemish in Mr Haddon-Cave’s report about the way in which he traduced the names and reputations of two distinguished senior officers. Of course, the hurt that they have suffered from sensational and erroneous headlines is nothing like that suffered by the families of the 14 servicemen who lost their lives. Nevertheless, I regard the way in which they have been treated as wholly unacceptable and a stain on the Ministry of Defence. The loyalty of our Armed Forces to their Queen, to Ministers and to their officers is a byword. Service men and women expect their loyalty upwards to be matched by similar loyalty downwards to them. As this traduction amounts to disloyalty downwards to two distinguished people who had demonstrated loyalty upwards throughout their professional lives, it has damaged respect for the MoD in the Armed Forces, who now fear that their loyalty may similarly not be returned. That state of affairs is as dangerous as it is regrettable, particularly when we are fighting a war. I urge Ministers to take urgent steps to ensure that such totally unsubstantiated and unbriefed "broader observations", to quote the Statement, are never again allowed to be published in their name. In particular, I ask the Minister what steps are being taken to put the record straight and to state publicly that General Sir Sam Cowan and Air Chief Marshal Sir Malcolm Pledger were wrongly pilloried for initiating financial cuts for which Ministers were responsible.