"My Lords, I do not want to take up too much time, so will address only Part 1 and reserve my comments on Parts 2 and 3 for later stages in the Bill’s progress.
If anything can be said about the Government and defence—quite modestly and unexceptionably, because the points …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"The noble Lord was characteristically thorough and conscientious in informing the House and in answering my noble friend’s questions. However, I think that he left out one point. Will the £5,000 joining-up bonus be repayable if the officer does not do a minimum amount of service? I would be interested …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"My Lords, is it not disingenuous and absurd to suggest that you can reduce the Army from 102,000 to 82,000 with no reduction in the nation’s defence capability? Will the noble Lord set out the figures clearly and frankly? What was the maximum military force that we were able to …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"I am sorry to interrupt but I cannot let that remark go unchallenged. The previous Government indeed committed themselves to buying two new carriers. We would have continued to have the aircraft to fly off them—the Harriers—and we ordered the F 35s to replace them. It was an entirely coherent, …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"The Minister is very kind. I was not intending to intervene in his speech, but I take this opportunity to apologise to the Committee for having got the timing so badly wrong and arriving late for this debate, which I thought was going to start a little later than it …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, and I think I agree with everything that he said on this subject. I learnt from him—no doubt there is something wrong with the way that I get information on these kind of incidents but I had …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"On that point, do the Government believe that it is a satisfactory situation that these payments are not illegal?..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"My Lords, it is the wrong decision to bring back the Army from Germany at present, and to do so at very considerable cost. The Minister mentioned the figure of £1.8 billion. That would have been enough to have kept Nimrod going, to have maintained a Harrier strike force and …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"My Lords, the Government’s record in this area is not a good one. Within a few months of getting rid of our carrier strike capability, we found ourselves regretting the absence of a carrier in the Libyan operation and were forced to spend even more money hiring an Italian naval …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech
"My Lords, when we were in government there was a rule that no one would ever be fired from the services as a result of wounds sustained in the course of duty. Anybody in those circumstances always had a choice of taking a compensation payment and an immediate pension if …..." Lord Davies of Stamford - View Speech