Defence Modernisation Programme

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as I tried to explain a little earlier, a fully fledged defence review would look very like the exercise that we conducted in 2015: going back to basics on what threats we face, what our ambitions are as a country and what we need to do to deter those threats and to provide for those ambitions. This modernisation programme takes the fundamentals of the SDSR as read, because we believe them to be credible. It is to decide what capabilities we now need, in the face of intensifying threats around the world, to counter those threats in a way that ensures that we have a sustainable programme going forward.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I have particular knowledge of the right honourable Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Defence, who succeeded me as Member of Parliament for South Staffordshire. Because most Members of your Lordships’ House do not know him, and many of them have a lifetime’s knowledge and experience of the things we are talking about, could my noble friend—in whom I have very real confidence and for whom I have great admiration—arrange, at an early date, a meeting in the Moses Room, so that the noble and gallant Lords in particular can have the opportunity of meeting and questioning the Secretary of State?

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to my noble friend. That is a very constructive idea, which I shall relay to the appropriate quarter.