Defence
Debate between Sam Carling and James Cartlidge(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
I, too, will start by agreeing with a member of the Opposition, specifically the former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace. He was quoted as saying that under his own party, our armed forces had been “hollowed out”.
Sam Carling
The shadow Secretary of State says, “Under successive Governments”—that includes his own, for 14 years. It is not often that I agree with Ministers from the last Government, but the former Defence Secretary was absolutely right. The smallest Army since the Napoleonic era, a record 13,000 complaints about defence housing in a single year, and investment grievously cut under austerity—that is the legacy we are looking at, no matter how much the Opposition want us to forget it.
As was recognised by my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Michelle Scrogham), the shadow Defence Secretary is criticising delays, but he was the Procurement Minister when 47 out of 49 major programmes were not on time or on budget, so we need to take what he says with a little bit of salt.