Speeches by Norman.

“rose—”

“Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?”

“Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?”

“I thank the Leader of the House for the clarity he has given us on the business of the House, and in particular for the rescheduling of the Diego Garcia Bill immediately after it was going to be debated, following the changes made to the Hillsborough law. I know the whole House will want to join me in expressing our co…”

“I thank the Leader of the House for his statement and for advance notice of it, but I think it should be noted by the House that this—I am sure he would agree—is a bit of a mess. The Public Office (Accountability) Bill was in Committee in December, and amendments should have been filed by the Government on Wednesday of…”

“Right. But having more money earlier to address readiness issues will make a huge difference.”

“They have obviously tightened it up.”

“So it was never actually costed? They did some work and they thought it was costed, but it wasn’t really costed.”

“You can imagine that if small in-year savings and additional funding remain as they are, you might have to cut a platform. That would be a major change required to fund other activities. Is that the kind of thing that is being discussed at the moment?”

“Well, obviously the Prime Minister thought it was true, so how is that—”

“So it was accepted that these proposals were costed and accepted for purposes of procedure, planning and programming, and to move forward on that basis. To come now and say, “Well, hold on a second, we had no idea the SDR was going to create all this additional cost” feels—”

“I just want to pick up one thing you said there, CDS, which was that the SDR was an external document presented to the Department. We had Lord Robertson in front of the Committee saying specifically that they worked very closely with MoD officials and with the Treasury all the way through, and that specific care was ta…”

“Thank you for coming in, CDS. I draw everyone’s attention to my registered interest in relation to training and technology. I want to understand what you were just saying a little further. Obviously, I understand that you want to be as helpful as possible to the Committee, given the circumstances, which are not easy fo…”

“Right, but I think you are giving us a picture of qualified concern, if I can put it that way, about lack of readiness and upgrade relative to SACEUR plans over the next four or five years. That is what I am hearing.”

“We will not reach SACEUR’s demands until the early 2030s, so if there is a war before then, we are all in trouble.”

“Right. But when are we going to meet those SACEUR plans that we have discussed?”

“That is important. So you are not very confident at the moment, but you are hopeful that the track you are on will get some confidence. When do you think that will be?”

“Can I come back to the important point you raised in relation to NATO? Obviously you have obligations, and we have obligations as a nation, under NATO, to provide specified forces, at defined readiness levels, for defined contingencies under NATO command on a timely basis. How confident are you that we are meeting our …”

“On a scale of one to 10—from low confidence to high confidence—how confident are you that any units that we deployed in Ukraine would have sufficient equipment, training and rotation schedules to be able to maintain a safe capability there?”

“But just on equipment, training and rotations, you are feeling pretty very confident.”