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Strategic Defence and Security Review

My Lords, at the outset I declare an interest as a non-executive director of AEGIS Defence Services and as a trustee of a number of charities operating in conflict and post-conflict regions in Africa and the wider world. There is an interest that I do not need to declare because I bear the marks of it on my body still, in that I served in the Treasury between 2001 and 2005. As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I conducted two comprehensive spending reviews. I bear the marks inflicted by a number of noble friends and noble and gallant Members of this House. It is not in my defence that I speak, but I did note that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, referred to the Treasury as predatory. It is incumbent on me to spring to the defence of my erstwhile Civil Service colleagues in the Treasury to say that the defence and intelligence spending teams of Her Majesty's Treasury are dedicated public servants—indeed, the armed services and the intelligence services have no better friends in Whitehall—but they have their job to do.