Strategic Defence and Security Review

May I just say a word on the process? I know that the Backbench Business Committee debates are a new procedure, but we need to settle into having some predictability and consistency in their organisation. Last week, there were no wind-ups, but this week there are to be some. Last week, we spoke after the Minister, but this week we are to speak before the Minister. Hon. Members need to know where they stand. I understand that this arrangement is new and I understand, therefore, why some of these issues are arising, but we need those things to be sorted out. The strategic defence and security review will define our armed forces for the foreseeable future, and the Government will have to take fundamental decisions about their shape, size and capabilities. The report published this week by the Select Committee on Defence raised serious concerns about the speed of, and the consultation process adopted by, the review. Many of those conclusions did not come as a surprise to me, and I agree wholeheartedly with much of what the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) said and what is contained in his report. It has been clear for a while now that the Chancellor is firmly in the driving seat, carrying out this review at breakneck speed and potentially sacrificing our long-term strategic priorities to the need to cut costs. That is an incredibly short-sighted approach, for which the country will pay a heavy price, and somebody needs to put the brakes on. Perhaps it will be the Minister. Before the election, he said:"““We know that whoever wins the election, the Treasury will make life difficult for the Ministry of Defence, especially in the light of the public deficit. All of us in the defence community within the political sphere will have to kick up rough to help to keep the Treasury at bay.””—[Official Report, 15 March 2010; Vol. 507, c. 643.]" He is now Minister for the Armed Forces and if he does not know how to kick up rough, he has a fair few people at his disposal who have the first-class ability to do so. He seems to need a few lessons in self-defence, and he has people at his disposal who can teach him if he does not know how.