---

Strategic Defence and Security Review

The simple answer is that the Government have promised a new approach to mental health services to support the armed forces. The Prime Minister has asked the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) to establish the most effective way of improving the care that we provide. On mental health screening, clinical experts have advised that further research is necessary before any new plans are put in place, so we are looking into the matter, but we will come back to the hon. Gentleman and the House on that subject in due course. A number of hon. Members have, understandably, raised various points of local interest in their constituency, or matters of particular interest to themselves, and that is entirely right. That, after all, is the point of devoting an entire day's debate to the strategic defence review. I was completely baffled to hear an Opposition Member ask when Parliament would get the opportunity to debate the strategic defence review; he was saying that in the middle of a full day's debate on it. Let me say to the hon. Members for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) and for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), who made points on behalf of the Navy; to the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), who referred to Typhoon; to the Scottish National party spokesman, the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), who talked about the situation of Scottish industry; to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), who raised the issue of the carriers; to the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), who talked about the important aerospace industries in his constituency; to the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), who talked about the Territorial Army in his constituency; and to the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle), who talked about the ship industry, that we quite understand why they made the points that they did. I cannot offer any promises or any comfort to anybody at this stage. We are just embarking on a genuinely comprehensive review. Nothing is completely safeguarded from it, but equally, no decisions have yet been taken that should give any of those Members specific cause for alarm. We are embarking on a comprehensive piece of work. It is right that they should articulate their concerns, but we cannot arrive at the conclusions at this stage, when we have not embarked on the piece of work. On the time scale, which Opposition Members are asking about, the work streams are now in place. Hon. Members—and everybody else—have the opportunity to contribute and make whatever representations they wish to make. If there are hon. Members who feel that they are under-informed, and want more information to inform representations that they might make during the review, they need only let us know. Ministers have an open-door policy, and Members are welcome to any further information that they feel they need.