§ Mr. Stracheyasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is satisfied that a reduction by 65 per cent. over the past five years in the amount of money allotted to production by his Department, out of the total amount voted each year by Parliament, is in the public interest; whether he is satisfied that his Department's allocation to production should now be increased to 30 per cent. of the allocation to production of all three Services, as it was five years ago, instead of 15 per cent. as it is now; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. SoamesThe reduction of expenditure between 1954 and 1958 was in part due to the run-down of the Army and to a new policy on the level of reserve stocks needed.
As I believe the right hon. Gentleman is aware, a comparison between the Services purely in terms of expenditure would be quite meaningless. It would take no account of the comparative cost of the various weapons, the phasing of re-equipment of each service or the level of reserves. What is important in this context is the Army's programme of re-equipment which will be pursued with the aim of completing the bulk of it in the next four years.