James Cartlidge

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and he is absolutely correct. Our legacy Act was based on what happened in South Africa. We may not like it, but if we want peace and reconciliation, any changes in the law that favour those who may have been guilty have to apply to both sides. It is simply a statement of fact. As I think I just showed with Loughgall, our Act of Parliament—the legacy Act—did indeed stop an inquest that would have been damaging to the armed forces but which I do not believe would have led to any prosecutions. Turning to what was not in the King’s Speech, the strategic defence review promised that: “A new Defence Readiness Bill should provide the Government with powers in reserve to mobilise Reserves and industry should crisis escalate into conflict.” With war on two fronts, surely such legislation should be the absolute top priority of this Government, but alas, there is no defence readiness Bill in the King’s Speech. Why not? The defence readiness Bill is not ready. What else is not ready? The defence investment plan is not ready, of course. We know that the Government are working flat out—[Hon. Members: “At pace!”]—and at pace, but the Secretary of State promised from the Dispatch Box almost a year ago that the defence investment plan would be published last autumn. It is now 10 months late, so when the Minister responds, can he tell us exactly when we are going to get the defence investment plan? Most importantly, we are bound to ask why we still have no defence investment plan. The DIP is meant to set out the detailed procurement decisions intended to implement Labour’s strategic defence review, so what do the authors of Labour’s SDR, appointed by the Prime Minister, think about the failure to publish the DIP and the impact of that on delivering the SDR? Each of the three key authors—Dr Fiona Hill, General Sir Richard Barrons and Lord Robertson—has absolutely slammed the Government for their failure to deliver. Lord Robertson, a former Labour Defence Secretary and former Secretary-General of NATO, stated: “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.” We agree 100%. The fact is, the current Prime Minister bottled it on welfare reform, U-turning repeatedly despite a majority of more than 160, and failing to make even modest changes to working-age benefits while removing the two-child benefit cap.