Lord Walney
Main Page: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Walney's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Fox
As I have said, the Army is already undertaking an investigation of its own, and I expect that to conclude fully in a matter of days. The inquiry will draw the appropriate lessons on whether the chain of command was appropriately followed in this case. It would be appropriate for the inquiry to come to conclusions, and not for us, without the full information, to do so.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State’s tone in responding to the shadow Secretary of State was surprisingly strident. Just so that the House is clear, he is not actually blaming the previous, Labour Government for this abominable failure in procedure, is he?
Dr Fox
I would hate the hon. Gentleman to get the wrong impression. What I am blaming the Labour Government for is the financial mismanagement that left a black hole of £38 billion in the MOD budget, and a massive deficit to get rid of. Without those, we would not have had to make redundancies of this scale in the first place.