Strategic Defence and Security Review

I declare my interest as a member of the reserve forces. I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on introducing this important debate and my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) and his Committee on their timely report, published this week. I read it with great interest and if I have any criticism of it I would have to start with the fact that it perhaps does not sufficiently recognise two rigorous and well-regarded studies, the Levene report and Bernard Gray's report, which set the scene for many of the points that it raises. In May 2010, of course, the coalition Government inherited the extremely difficult task of bringing some order to a chaotic defence budget. The Gray report was leaked to the electorate before the general election, so voters such as those in my constituency, which has a large defence interest, had the benefit of seeing it, as did I. The previous Government might well have tried to delay the publication of the report because the word ““grotesque”” reflected some of the real horrors in Defence Equipment and Support that were unearthed in the dying days of Labour's 13-year stewardship. Bernard Gray told us that the MOD was running a ““substantially overheated equipment programme”” and that the sclerotic Department was hampering our ability to conduct difficult current operations. He went on to say:"““The problems, and the sums of money involved, have almost lost their power to shock, so endemic is the issue.””"