Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/ Co-op)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 23 March.

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in paying tribute to Private Daniel Prior, from 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment, who died on Friday at Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham having been wounded in Afghanistan on Wednesday. Tragically, Private Prior had just become a father and our deepest condolences should be with his family and friends, especially his wife and his newborn son. We must make sure that he grows up in a country where everyone honours the memory of his father and what all our armed forces stand for.

This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and in addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[John Woodcock]

I thank the Prime Minister for that answer and associate myself, and all on the Opposition side of the House, with his moving tribute to Private Daniel Prior.

The Prime Minister has taken the right decisions to extend the life of the Nimrods and HMS Cumberland so that our armed forces remain equipped to protect in this conflict. He knows the uncertainty we now face, so will he, in due course, extend that rethink of our defence capabilities?

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously we will look very closely at all the lessons we should learn from what we are engaged in: diplomatically; politically; and in terms of both foreign policy and military equipment. What I would say, though, is that the whole predication of the strategic defence and security review was that we should be able to deploy at speed anywhere in the world and have very flexible armed forces, with particular emphasis on transport and on things such as special forces. We think that we did anticipate the sorts of things we are doing now, but if there are further lessons to learn, of course we should learn them.