Britain and International Security

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the sensible and pragmatic way in which he is dealing with all the problems around the world. He is talking about planes and ships, and about men and women doing various good things all around the world, as no doubt they are. As an ex-member of the armed forces, I am fully aware of the top quality of our men and women, and I cannot praise them enough. However, in my day those would have been called out-of-area operations, and we do not have the volume to meet a major threat. The Secretary of State has already said that we face many potential major threats. Surely we need to spend a lot more than 2% on defence to meet that awful inevitability.