Oral Answers to Questions

Khalid Mahmood Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I feel my right hon. Friend’s sense of urgency about getting this review done. He will also know that SDSR after SDSR, under Governments of both colours, often failed because they were never in step with the spending plans of the Government, and we ended up with SDSRs that were over-ambitious and underfunded. It is really important that the integrated review reports at the same time as the comprehensive spending review, which is due in the autumn. We must also learn the lessons from the recent covid outbreak, which shows how important resilience is, and feed that into the review to make sure that it is as up to date as possible.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab) [V]]

I would like to start by commending our excellent armed forces for their exemplary service to the public during the covid-19 period.

Over the past decade, this Government have severely cut the size of our armed forces. We have had three very good questions from my hon. Friends the Members for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) and for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), and from the Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), yet the Secretary of State has refused to answer the real question, which is this: will he increase the recruitment and retention of armed forces personnel—yes or no?

[Mr Wallace]

Recruitment is up, as is retention. That is the direction of travel. That is what we are delivering for our armed forces. It is very clear that our armed forces are growing, as is our defence spending, which is our commitment.