Lord Beamish
Main Page: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Beamish's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(10 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Francois
My hon. Friend—who, by the way, is responsible for the amendment that leads to the report mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon)—is familiar with the whole process, and he and I have discussed the matter on a number of occasions. To make the programme work as effectively as possible, we must continue to devolve responsibility for recruiting down to unit level to give commanding officers and their subordinate officers greater responsibility and challenge in meeting the numbers. As I have intimated to the House, that programme is already under way, and I believe that with his support, and support across the House, we can make this programme work.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The NAO report concluded that the Government’s incompetent handling of Army 2020 was leading to serious shortfalls in capability. As my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) just announced, the only target they were meeting was handing out P45s. The Prime Minister’s announcement today of investment in special forces will ring pretty hollow as they go through a restructuring programme that has seen a reduction in their capability. Is this not yet another example of Ministers giving with one hand, only to take away with the other?
Mr Francois
The reason we have been able to announce more than £1 billion of investment in equipment for our armed forces is the careful financial management we have had to undertake because of the financial train crash we inherited from Opposition Members.