On Tuesday evening in the Chamber I wound up the General Debate on Defence for the Opposition. The debate was excellent, with important contributions from members from across The House.

Members spoke on falling defence spending, armed forces numbers cut to their smallest size since Napoleon and personnel living in damp, mouldy housing that has caused morale and retention levels to drop alarmingly. Under the Conservative Government we are even seeing armed forces personnel having to visit food banks to put food on the table.

Britain’s armed forces are vital to our national defence, but since 2010 the Tories have reduced our armed forces by more than 43,000 personnel, removed one in five ships from the Royal Navy and over the last five years alone more than 200 aircraft have been taken out of service, all while threats to our national security increase around the world.

The Conservatives have wasted over £15 billion of taxpayers money through mismanagement of defence procurement programmes, £5 billion of which in the last five years alone. Forty-six of fifty-two major defence projects are not on time or budget and the Ajax fighting vehicle, which was supposed to be in service in 2017, has no deployed vehicles and will not be in service until 2025.

As I said in the debate, a Labour Government will do better. Under a future Labour Government, we will drive deep defence procurement reform inside the Ministry of Defence to reduce waste and ensure that our armed forces have the kit they need to defend Britain.

Labour is committed to strengthening our national defence and supporting our armed forces and their families. We will always do what is necessary to defend the country, and we will always spend what is necessary to deal with the threats that we face. Britain will be better defended under Labour.

You can see my contribution to the debate above.