Defence Responsibilities

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

There are no meetings that were unofficial that were not recorded and I made one official visit as Secretary of State. As I have said, the role of Mr Werritty in that was, first, in the official meeting, to organise the lecture for the Kadirgamar Institute, which he did, and, secondly, to ensure that we were able to try to get continuity in the efforts we were trying to bring to investment and subsequent diversion of profit into social projects. I think that is an enterprise that is still worth following.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

May I commend my right hon. Friend for his apology to the House and for his answers to the questions that have been raised? Over the weekend, I met two servicemen who are shortly to be deployed to Afghanistan. Now that those answers have been provided, I am sure that they will want him, and indeed the whole House, to focus on that conflict and on sorting out the mess in the defence budget that we inherited from the previous Government rather than on this story.

[Dr Fox]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his very kind words. We will continue to focus on those issues because we cannot afford not to. They are literally a matter of life and death and they have to be what we give our greatest attention to. These political matters are matters of extreme discomfort for those of us in the firing line and for our families; however, we have to recognise that the trials and tribulations that we face in public life are nothing compared with the threats facing those in our armed forces.