Richard Foord
Main Page: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)Department Debates - View all Richard Foord's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
So far, the debate has been about how much funding should be found for defence. We should also think about the resignation speech by the former Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), who said last week that the DIP, which he has seen, does not strike the right balance between high-end sophistication and low-end mass. He said that
“the defence investment plan does not strike that balance”.—[Official Report, 16 June 2026; Vol. 787, c. 732.]
Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to think about the balance between sophistication and mass?
Dr Pinkerton
My hon. Friend speaks from a position of authority from his personal experience and his role in Committees in this House. I defer, as always, to his superior insights on the matter, and would not differ on anything he has suggested.
Britain’s European allies share our values and commitment to collective defence. We cannot be a spectator while Europe rebuilds its defences; instead, we should shape and lead that effort.
On the Conservatives’ watch, our Army fell to its smallest size since the Napoleonic wars, while the Navy’s surface fleet fell to its smallest size since the English civil war. We saw crises of recruitment, retention and morale and a failure to look after our service personnel and veterans properly, with shoddy housing and one of the worst privatisation deals in British political history.