Baroness Morgan of Cotes
Main Page: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Morgan of Cotes's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)
10. What assessment he has made of the effect on the armed forces of a balanced defence budget.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
16. What assessment he has made of the effect on the armed forces of a balanced defence budget.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)
A balanced budget gives our armed forces confidence that once a project is in the programme, it is real, funded and will be delivered, so that they can plan with certainty. The balanced budget is a firm baseline for the transformation to an armed forces that are smaller, but that will be adaptable, agile, well equipped with the best technology and supported by a Ministry of Defence that is re-focused around their needs.
Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend has put her finger on the problem: in the past we had an armed forces budget that was out of kilter, and were trying to support armed forces that were not properly resourced. The consequences were inadequate protective equipment and inadequate military equipment to do the job they were being asked to carry out. I believe that we have an absolute moral responsibility, when we ask people to put themselves in harm’s way, to equip them with the kit that they need to be as safe as possible in doing that.
Nicky Morgan
My right hon. Friend will be aware that we live in a very uncertain world, in which new threats are evolving—we have already heard mention of cyber-security threats. Is he convinced that now that we have a balanced budget, there is scope to tackle these new threats and to provide the kit that our armed forces need?
Mr Hammond
As my hon. Friend says, we live in a very uncertain world and the threats are changing, and technology also is changing very rapidly. Precisely for that reason, we have kept £8 billion-worth of headroom in the equipment programme, rather than allocating every last penny of it, as was the practice in the past. Too often in the past, we have had to cancel or abandon expensive commitments in order to respond to changes in technology or threat. We should not be in that position in future.