Defence

The right hon. Gentleman knows the difficulty of serving in this House and debating defence issues from the Opposition Benches. He knows we simply will not have access to the classified information on threats, the capabilities we need, the state of the armed forces or even the true state of public finances until we open the books. Those are the sort of decisions that we will make in a strategic defence review within the first year of a new Labour Government. That is the way that we will balance the requirements for national security with the responsibilities for sound public finances.