"My Lords, I endorse the words of my noble friend Lord West about the importance of having four SSBMs rather than three, which has been brought out by this incident. Had we only three boats, as people more out of ignorance of the situation than anything else have sometimes urged …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"My noble friend is saying some important things but does he agree that if the Government are serious about producing or drafting an SDSR, they ought at an early stage to be consulting not merely with the list of people who he quite rightly set out—the academics, think tanks …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"My Lords, the Minister made a full and comprehensive speech under Amendment 18. It was a very good speech and set off a kind of Second Reading debate, which was quite interesting. I broadly agree with him. As he knows, I utterly deprecate the reduction in our Regular Forces and …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"My Lords, I must have given the wrong impression. In no sense was I complaining about the length of the Minister’s speech. I thought I had congratulated him on a comprehensive speech, which had started an interesting debate...." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"I thank the noble Lord and totally agree about this. The reserves have done a wonderful job. I pay tribute to them. We have all paid tribute to them. I used to go to Afghanistan and Iraq every six months when I was in the MoD, and I saw them …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"My noble friend’s amendment is testimony to what I spoke about earlier—the complete commitment on this side of the Committee to try to ensure that we successfully recruit and train the projected number of reservists. It would be intolerable if people who had signed up to fight for their country …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"Would the noble Lord be kind enough to address my point about the National Guard in relation to Amendment 18B? We should bear in mind that any employers’ organisation—like any other trade association or representative body—is always likely, when a new idea is put to it, to adopt a defensive, …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"My Lords, when in 2007 I chaired the national inquiry into the national recognition of the Armed Forces, this was one of the recommendations that we made. We made 40 recommendations, 38 of which, including Armed Forces Day, automatic parades for units returning from combat missions and so forth, were …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"My Lords, I do not know that I should get into the habit of answering questions across the Floor. I would love to be a Minister again but that has not happened to me so far. I shall have to wait a bit longer. However, I shall of course respond …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"My Lords, I was the last defence procurement Minister in the previous Government. It is too early to make definitive judgments about how well-based were the projects for which I was responsible because some of them were quite long term. As far as I know, most of them are doing …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech