Fox: defence review is under way

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Defence Secretary Liam Fox has used his first day in office to launch the long-awaited strategic defence and security review (SDSR).

Speaking to ITV News, Fox said that work had already begun on the review. The Conservatives approach to the review was set out in a feature article on Defencemanagement.com before the election.

"We desperately need a defence review which is why it will begin immediately, it will begin today (12 May)," he said. "We now need to look at the threats that this country faces and to look at the threats of the future and try to shape our armed forces and our budgets to protect Britain not only today but from what might come out of the blue at us."

The Defence Secretary said that as well as conducting the review, his priority was to ensure troops in Afghanistan were well equipped.

"We're all concerned about the political excitement here but we have to remember that in Afghanistan our armed forces are involved in a very brutal and bloody war and we have to ensure that they have everything they need to do the job that we have asked them to do in our name," he said. "So the number one priority has to be to look after our armed forces," he said.

"There will be a number of challenges because the time I spent working as a doctor with the armed forces taught me that it's not just about our frontline forces themselves, it's also about the families. And we have to pay more attention to service families and their needs as we also have to do with service veterans. I think that in this country we need to treat our veterans in the way that the best of other countries treat their veterans."

Fox also added that the coalition government arrangement with the Liberal Democrats would allow the Trident replacement programme go ahead.

"We've got a very clear agreement that we will continue with the nuclear deterrent. The liberals have said that they would like to look at what other alternatives in terms of costs of the nuclear deterrent will be. I will certainly want to scrutinise the cost of the Trident replacement programme but the ultimate responsibility is to keep Britain safe and protect the generations of the future from whatever threats may emerge in a dangerous world.

"We cannot play fast and loose with the country's security and we will not."