Speeches by Healey.

“I have not had a specific formal briefing on those, Ms Baker, but those have been part of some of the discussions I have had when I have been in NATO headquarters and we have been meeting as defence Ministers, particularly on the margins of some of those meetings.”

“They are not all going to happen in the first year; they cannot. The SDR was a vision and essentially an outline strategic plan for the next decade, and that is what we will pursue.”

“First, it is a Parliament-long programme. I could tell you what progress looks like after 18 months. A Chief of the Defence Staff who now commands the service chiefs for the first time. A newly defined, powerful and appointed National Armaments Director for the first time in this country. A new Military Strategic Headq…”

“One of the top priorities of Mark Rutte when he became Secretary General of NATO, quite rightly, was a greater drive to see more joint commissioning and interoperable standards through NATO across our defence systems, something that I and we are really strongly behind. If you will allow me, Mr Chairman, I will provide …”

“The Strategic Defence Review was always a strategic review. It was not there to make the detailed investment decisions; that is my job, our job. That is the job we are now doing to implement the Strategic Defence Review through the defence investment planning process. What it did was recognise that there were prioritie…”

“The work of the SDR. It worked within the terms of reference and the financial envelope it was given and it produced the Strategic Defence Review. You can take a view about whether it fully met its terms of reference or not. It was a fundamental review, the first of its kind done in that way. It had an extraordinary in…”

“The short answer to your question is no and no. The budget this year is £6 billion bigger than it was last year so we are spending more. Of course, as you would expect—as the public would expect—we are trying to make sure that we spend that well, that it reflects the priorities and rising pressures on Defence at the mo…”

“I am still working on GCAP and am absolutely determined that the momentum of the programme is maintained. I have been in communication with both the Italian and Japanese Defence Ministers within the last 24 hours. To come to this really important point that you are making here, this investment plan—the plan for defence…”

“I am sorry, Mr Bailey, I am just not following what you are saying.”

“Between the permanent secretary and I, we can give you a feel for that. I do not know if this takes us into the reform territory but you are quite right: part of the most important elements of the reform have meant we have four budget holders instead of 10 and we have one investment budget. If you look at the budget of…”

“Yes.”

“You have lost me. The SDR was a reset of this country’s strategic defence and security approach. It was done so to reflect the framework of priorities that we had set out in our manifesto.”

“I may be being a bit slow but I am still not following you. Of course the Strategic Defence Review was a review and a resetting of Britain’s strategic priorities. We left behind—we said at the election we would—the bombast of a global Britain under Boris Johnson. We were recognising the increasing threats, that America…”

“I am still failing to understand your question. Chair, perhaps if you need to, you can write to me on this.”

“When you look at the £270 billion we will be spending in this Parliament, the fact we will hit 3% in the next Parliament and we have made a commitment like the other 31 allies as members of NATO to 3.5% on Defence by 2035, this gives us that certain decade of rising defence spending, which I talked about to Ms Scrogham…”

“But where there are multilateral mechanisms like the OCAR system, and we can use them and they are appropriate, we do use them. But I would just say, the principle that we do not do some big things alone is not just about using the multinational systems. If you look at the Lunna House Agreement—the biggest ever British…”

“They will be part of what we plan to deliver over the next decade, which is, of course, the period of the SDR.”

“Are you talking about the equipment plan produced under the last Government? Why on earth would we continue with something that was as badly flawed as that? It was not just that the NAO regarded it as underfunded and unlikely to be delivered; it also pointed out that the whole way that defence was previously putting th…”

“Let me first commit to providing you the chapter and verse in the areas you are interested in, then take a view about whether you think we are using them effectively or sufficiently, and at that point I will do the same.”

“Okay, so there is a recommendation with a very exacting timetable over reworking and revamping certain elements of military training, and we are off the pace on that. But to my knowledge and recognition we have been determined to act where we can, make decisions where we need to and implement the SDR—including the reco…”