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Lord West of Spithead (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 26 March 2025

Debate

Future Defence Capability

Contribution

My Lords, our armed services, I am afraid, are in a parlous state—it is no good pretending otherwise. They have been seriously hollowed out and they are nowhere near the capabilities that our nation thought they would have. Thank goodness we are now putting some money into defence, but there is a need to think in the short-term as well as the long-term. Are we making sure that we put money in rapidly to the areas that need to be resolved quickly, in case we are at war within the next couple of years, as well as just looking ahead to the way we would like to structure our forces for the future? This is what the SDR was going to do.

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