Speeches by Healey.

“The short answer is yes, undoubtedly. The opportunities are there not just for full-time recruitment but for reservist recruitment. That sort of hybrid can be attractive to many people, particularly if they have skills like that. Many of those in the medical service who are full-time forces personnel work a lot of thei…”

“Theoretically we could. As I explained earlier, I have a concern about our recruitment across the board rather than one specific group, but I recognise the essential and invaluable contribution that they can make to our forces.”

“I think we have a good record of recruiting Commonwealth soldiers. Our level of recruitment of soldiers from the Commonwealth in particular is actually relatively high at the moment. It might be that many more want to apply than we can take, which is good, because it means that we get a selection of the best. We can of…”

“This was probably the first systematic look at the range of things affecting morale, recruitment and retention that had been taking place for years. It was very valuable and, I thought, very comprehensive, even though it was commissioned under the previous Government. David, do you want to give Mr Roome an update on ho…”

“We are some way off at the moment, but that is the purpose of setting targets. If you or I were not fortunate enough to be Members of Parliament and were in the job market, we would not expect to wait more than a month for some sort of response from any employer we were applying to, so there is no reason why our forces…”

“Yes—and thank you, Mr Roome. I am pausing only because I really want to emphasise that we are a Government that will place people at the heart of our defence plans. We are now facing deep-set problems, and those deep-set problems run over the last 14 years: recruitment targets were set and missed every year; in the las…”

“Resilience is a really important question. Ukraine reminds us of this truth: your Armed Forces are only as strong as the industry that stands behind them. That is why the General laid stress on the fact that the reforms we are trying to make on a defence-industrial strategy are not just what we are embarking on now and…”

“Of course, we commit the largest part of our Armed Forces across the board to NATO. We commit our independent nuclear deterrent to NATO. We have around 1,000 people in NATO institutions. We have three significant NATO centres in the UK: the maritime command, the innovation centre and the ARRC. We make a massive contrib…”

“We are there now, of course, in Estonia.”

“That is more specific.”

“Yes.”

“Sure.”

“I suspect my answer will be the same as to the rest of the checklist of questions you have. The questions I had in Opposition were the reason I made the commitment before the election to undertake a NATO test, which I have now completed. That was to do exactly the job you are asking about, but I cannot provide the answ…”

“First, and I say this as a Labour Secretary of State, it means a recognition and a sense of pride that it was a Labour Foreign Secretary who was the architect of the NATO alliance when it was first established, particularly the article 5 collective defence at the heart of it. I feel that Labour is the party of NATO and…”

“Can I make one point to build on that? I really do not want the Committee to be under any impression that we have somehow set up the strategic review and the Ministry of Defence is sitting back, waiting to see what it has to say. We are dealing with the Russian spy ship, the Yantar, which has been in our waters. We tra…”

“You are entirely right, Mr Norman. One focus within the terms of reference for the reviewers was to assess the adequacy of our homeland defences. Clearly, there is a recognition in recent months, not least because we have seen damage to essential undersea cables in different parts of the north Atlantic, the North sea a…”

“I am certainly not expecting the reviewers to produce a fudged report. You can get, Mr Norman, some indication of the priorities that will be in the review, because they are what we have set to guide them. For instance, we are a Government who have made the commitment to a NATO-first approach to defence. That helps to …”

“We were dealing, as you will remember, with the aftermath of a global financial crisis driven by the over-extension and recklessness of the global financial system. We were helping to pull the economy out of the deepest recession that we had had for decades. In fact, in the first quarter of 2010, the economy was growin…”

“I have met some of these ageing, and some ailing, nuclear test veterans. I have enormous respect for the campaign that they have run, and share their frustrated anguish at not being properly recognised. But with respect, that sort of judge-led inquiry could take years. The important thing is that we get to the bottom o…”

“First of all, hats off to the Mirror and Susie Boniface for the campaign that they ran and for the way in which they have supported the nuclear test veterans. But, with respect, there is not necessarily an inconsistency. I am not saying this is the case, but there is not necessarily an inconsistency in nuclear test vet…”