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Strategic Defence and Security Review

I feel the empathy between the two Front Benches on the financial pressures at the MOD, and I, too, am familiar with that. Does my right hon. Friend agree that emerging thinking should come early, at least in respect of the military covenant issues? I am thinking in particular of the announced review of armed forces pensions. Can we have a reassurance that existing members of the scheme will not be affected? Does my right hon. Friend think the Government Front-Bench team should reassure us of that, at least, today? On a slightly more controversial note, does my right hon. Friend think we should hear from the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan), about the mental health of serving personnel? He was completely hopeless on ““File on 4”” yesterday, and seemed to contradict himself three times on whether we would have screening of military personnel. He eventually had to endure the humiliation of being interrupted by the MOD chief press officer because he was going off-script.