[Alicia Kearns (Shadow Minister for Home Affairs): Earlier this month, the right hon. Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey) resigned as Defence Secretary. He was clear that the reason was a defence investment plan – which, it appears, The Times newspaper has also had sight of – that did not give the armed forces “the resources they need”. He was followed out of the door by the Armed Forces Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), who said that the Government’s plans were

“neither transformative enough nor sufficiently funded”.

Given that the hon. Member had served in our armed forces, one would have thought that his warning might have been heeded.]

Sir Julian Lewis: Bearing in mind an item that has appeared in the news reports today, does my hon. Friend agree that either the right hon. Gentleman or the hon. and gallant Gentleman to whom she has just referred would be a far more suitable future Secretary-General of NATO than the present Prime Minister, whose lack of proper funding of a defence policy – among other deficiencies – has led him to be looking for a new job?

[Alicia Kearns: I always found the former Defence Secretary to be very decent in how he engaged, how he worked across parties and how seriously he took the job. I do not think there is a vacancy for the NATO Secretary-General for at least another eight years, but the current Prime Minister, who has taken us from third place to 12th in NATO defence spending in the past couple of years, would not be the right man to lead NATO at this time or any other.]