Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I may be suffering from early onset whatever, but I do not think that at any stage I have suffered from the delusion that the hon. Gentleman was ever Secretary of State for Defence. I have made it clear in answer to similar questions in the House that Defence is not funded to maintain a regular force at the scale of 94,000 through to beyond 2018. We are required for budgetary reasons to draw down the regular force as we build the reserve force, and that is what we are doing.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I welcome the update to Parliament on the United Kingdom’s future nuclear deterrent published today, which states:

“The Government policy remains to maintain a continuous at sea deterrent and proceed with the programme to build a new fleet of ballistic missile submarines.”

Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Government will in no way entertain any squalid deals with any other party if what is needed for continuous-at-sea deterrence is four submarines and if another party, conceivably the Liberal Democrats, tried to argue that three would do?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend may note that some people have even suggested that two submarines could provide some sort of deterrent, but the Government and the Prime Minister have made clear their commitment to continuous at-sea deterrence and to delivering the number of submarines required to provide proper at-sea deterrence, not some jumped-up, import alternative.