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Defence Reform

I welcome that response from my right hon. Friend. He knows that he is assured of my personal support for the work that he is doing, but I remain convinced that there is a difference between the management of defence procurement and the formulation of military strategy at the highest level. What bothers me is that the single service chiefs are increasingly separated from the Chief of the Defence Staff, and that is no way to end inter-service rivalry. We ran the second world war with a committee of three, and we ought to be running these wars with a committee of four, not with a CDS on his own on a defence board, even if supplemented by the Minister for the Armed Forces.