Bob Stewart
Main Page: Bob Stewart (Conservative - Beckenham)
Mr Arbuthnot
The hon. Gentleman, who has been on the Defence Committee since, I think, 2003, and who knows more about it than any of us, is quite right. He will raise his points in the next Defence Committee inquiry into Future Force 2020, which will tie together all these issues in the reports that the Committee does to build up to the next defence and security review.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the next SDSR should look at the fighting power of the Army, possibly also looking at the concept of critical mass as part of the SDSR?
Mr Arbuthnot
My hon. Friend is right. The fighting power of the Army seems to have been less used than we would like by the MOD both as a concept and in its language in recent years. Fighting power involves the conceptual component—the thought process—the moral component, which is the ability to get people to fight, and the physical component, or the means to fight. We call on the MOD to produce a regular report on that so that we can understand how well defended the country actually is.