Please read below my speech delivered to the EIS summit earlier today:  It is great to be at the 3rd Annual Electrical Infrastructure Security Summit. It is vital that there is an international dialogue on how to challenge modern threats and your work is a central part of that. There is a risk that policy development [...]

Please see my response below to claims today by Defence Secretary Philip Hammond that he has ‘balanced’ the MOD budget. “We will judge today’s statement not on reheated slogans but on the detail published. Procurement reform is essential, but we have little detail to support grand claims.   “The Government must provide the right balance between flexible [...]

Please read below my response in the House of Commons on the Joint Strike Fighter programme and aircraft carriers.   Thank you Mr Speaker and thank you to the Secretary of State for his statement. Let me start by saying that when the Government do the right thing on defence they will have the support [...]

It has been reported today that the Prime Minister has agreed to u-turn on the model of Joint Strike Fighter the Government is planning to purchase.  The Government’s chaotic carrier policy totally undermines their credibility on defence.  This is a personal humiliation for David Cameron who will to return to Labour’s policy, which he previously condemned.  This [...]

Philip Hammond has today been interviewed in the Daily Telegraph.  The defence community will be dismayed that history is being dismissed.  Defence is about more than inputs, outputs and spreadsheets. It is also about people, tradition and pride.  Philip Hammond seems either oblivious or uncaring about the historic ties that many communities have to Army units [...]

The success of military operations in Afghanistan and beyond requires better communications with publics at home and on the frontline. To do this, we need to further erode the barriers between the diplomatic, military and civilian worlds. The globalised world in which we live, with its rapidly evolving modern threats combined with budgetary pressures for [...]

Questions Cameron must answer on Aircraft Carriers and Joint Strike Fighter Please read below a letter I released today that I have sent to David Cameron demanding answers to serious questions about Britain’s future defence capability: ‪ Text of Letter below: ‪Dear Prime Minister, ‪The aircraft carrier programme is one of the most strategically important elements of [...]

Strong military families make strong military communities. The quiet courage of those back home who support service personnel overseas is the backbone of the Armed Forces.  Last year over 1,000 service personnel suffered major injury. The care provided by the Services and our health professionals is first class, but service men and women’s sacrifices and [...]

It has been reported today that the Military are set to advise David Cameron to u-turn on his carrier strike policy announced in the strategic Defence and Security Review.    This u-turn would be a humiliation for the Prime Minister.    This is a mess entirely of Ministers’ own making. The Government acted without strategy [...]

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, policy director at the Royal United Services Institute, today warns that “in a world in which the security of states is increasingly interdependent, it is hard to imagine why the prospect of having independent armed forces could, in itself, be a good reason to support independence”. He says that in a separate [...]