Strategic Defence and Security Review

I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman was not in post during the relevant period, but does he regret not conducting a defence review in the past decade? A review might have helped to identify the fact that Snatch Land Rovers were not appropriate in Afghanistan. We went through a period of bizarre procurement in which the Ridgback, the Cougar, the Vector, the Jackal and the Mastiff were produced one after another and bought off the shelf to try to identify something that would work in Afghanistan. If we had held a defence review, perhaps we would have seen that the conduct and style of war was changing before our eyes and we could then have ensured that we sent our armed forces to Afghanistan with the right equipment.