Speeches by Norman.

“As the House will know, we have incoming news of a terrible disaster involving a flight out of Ahmedabad in India. I know that the Leader of the House will want to say a few words, but, from the Conservative Benches—I am sure that I speak for the whole House—let me wish everyone involved and their families the very bes…”

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

“Dr Hill, do you want to come in on any of that?”

“That is an extremely helpful response, which points that to the fact that you have answered the question. The question is itself, potentially, changing quite rapidly, and it is a political question how to respond to that. Are there other comments that reviewers would like to make on that? Obviously, it is very sensitiv…”

“To pick up the point you just made, Dr Hill, the uncertainty has a very significant potential cost for UK defence and security if we cannot rely on the USA in relation to sharing of expertise, refurbishing of warheads or intelligence. Those things create enormous potential costs and it would be interesting to explore h…”

“Thank you very much.”

“General Barrons, when the review was originally announced, it was said in terms that it would be “Britain’s review—not just the Government’s”, and that it would consult serving military, veterans, MPs of all parties, industry and academia. As a reviewer and former military officer, were you disappointed by the way in w…”

“Lord Robertson, what were your feelings about that?”

“What do you think were the positives and negatives of that very novel approach?”

“You say you were shown and given access to every level of secret information. Can we take it, therefore, that there is a separate report, on matters that are above secret, that has gone to Government alongside the published document?”

“Of course. As you look back on the somewhat protracted process—I will throw this question open to the other reviewers as well, but it is for Lord Robertson first—what do you think could and perhaps should have been done differently?”

“Will the review process, now having terminated, result in any further ability for you and the other reviewers to keep an eye on how the report is implemented—how the baby is being cosseted and loved by the MOD and the wider defence establishment?”

“They will be on their 10,000th iteration by that point. I think Dr Hill wanted to come in.”

“Dr Hill’s point on skills is absolutely right. The other point is what you might call dual-use companies: companies that might not be in the defence and security sector at the moment, but can produce military goods, if called on and required to, as in the Ventilator Challenge model. That is not something for now, but I…”

“I have one final question. Two key areas that do require current spend as opposed to capital spend are the acquisition of interim technologies and training and recruitment. If you were writing the SDR now, would you have made more investment out of current spending in those areas? They feel quite light. You have sugges…”

“Is there not a slight bait and switch here, Sir Tony? When you ask what is different about the spending review, the response will be, as you have emphasised in your testimony today, about capital investment. You talk about AUKUS, subs and GCAP. The problem that is going to affect lethality in the short run is a current…”

“What would the sentence to follow be, Sir Tony?”

“Just to be clear, you do not agree with him. He is wrong about that. It is not right to think that, if we do not spend that 5%, we face a very serious threat.”

“You would agree that we have a war in Ukraine, in which we are doing everything we can to support the Ukrainians. We know Xi Jinping has instructed the People’s Liberation Army to set a 2027 deadline for invading Taiwan. What difference is this SDR going to make to our lethality and our ability to make a difference wit…”

“There is nothing wrong with that. I am asking what the increment is. I wanted a specific reason why. I will come to that in a second. What is the increment, first of all? What more does this give us that we would not have had two weeks ago?”