Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith has called for an inquiry into leaks regarding the Strategic Defence Review, describing the situation as an "absolute shambles".Speaking to GB News, Griffith raised concerns about market-sensitive information potentially being given to people for insider dealing on the stock market.FULL STORY HERE.
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00:00Can I start by asking you about the Defence Review yesterday, Prime Minister describing our armed forces as hollowed out and the Defence Review itself concluding that our defences have not seen significant investment in years.
00:13They say it's resulted in an organisation that is not optimised for warfare against a military state. This is entirely on the Tories, isn't it?
00:22Well, yesterday we saw an absolute shambles. This is a very, very serious matter. The Strategic Defence Review is an important piece of work.
00:34It's been done on an independent basis. And two things we saw. First of all, the way in which it was communicated leaked, briefed out, potentially given to people to incide a dealing on the stock market because it's market sensitive.
00:51So on that side, we absolutely need an inquiry to find out what happened, when and by whom.
00:58On the substance of this, at the end of the day, this is about the funding.
01:02There's no greater duty of the government, the state, than to defend our sovereignty and our peace and security.
01:09And the big gap is not the Defence Review itself. As I say, it's a decent piece of work.
01:14It lays out very clearly the change threats that we're all seeing and that have changed over recent years, independent of government.
01:22But the key thing is there's no actual money. There's no beef to support this.
01:27Long-term commitments need to be made. It takes 10 years to build frigates or submarines.
01:32We need the clarity to be able to mobilise. And all we've got from the government is an ambition, right?
01:38No actual firm money. The Conservatives say we need 3% spending by the end of this Parliament.
01:43That's not even what the government once said, which is 3% by the end of the next Parliament.
01:48That is too little. And we don't even have that. We've got an ambition.
01:52Well, I've got an ambition, I'm afraid, to run a marathon in under three and a half hours.
01:57But that's no more likely to happen, unfortunately, on current course, than the government properly funding our defence.
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