Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom
Main Page: Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Francois
Last week’s actions by the Guardia Civil were completely unacceptable. They were both unlawful and irresponsible, placing themselves and others in unnecessary danger. I can tell the House that we have made a formal protest to the Spanish Government, and ministerial colleagues in the Foreign Office will be raising this matter with their Spanish counterparts at the first opportunity.
Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)
Given that we are a maritime nation, does my right hon. Friend agree that in the next defence and security review a maritime patrol aircraft should receive high priority?
Mr Francois
That will, indeed, be one of the issues we look at in some detail in the context of the next SDSR. As my right hon. Friend is the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, he will be well aware that there were serious problems with the previous programme, because it was way over budget and, unfortunately, technically did not ultimately work. Perhaps I may remind the House who was in government for most of the time that that programme was running; it was not us.