00:00But this smacks of a lack of warfighting mentality that reaches right across the government,
00:06which is what we address in this paper about warfighting readiness, where we are not at.
00:11And the chiefs of staff are saying we need to be ready for war.
00:15So when are we going to be prepared and prepared for what?
00:19We are finalising the investment plan.
00:24That sits with the strategic defence review.
00:28The smacks of an enormous complacency.
00:30Well, this smacks of the fact that for years there was underinvestment by the last government
00:33and the stripping out and following out of our armed forces.
00:35We had 18 months to deal with that.
00:36Copyright Ben Wallace, who was the defence secretary.
00:39I'm not making a particle political point.
00:40Well, honestly, 14 years of underinvestment, 18 months for a Labour government.
00:44But take drones, for example.
00:45We're picking up the underinvestment of your government.
00:48The whole concept of warfighting has changed in the last 12 months.
00:53I understand that.
00:54I was in Ukraine very recently and the Ukrainian armed forces are mystified and want to offer help
01:01as they are offering help to the Gulf states, to the NATO frontline states and to the NATO JEF
01:07about how to prepare for drone warfare.
01:10This is being held up by the lack of the defence industrial plan.
01:14No, it's not.
01:14I spoke to President Zelensky in last week.
01:17I speak to him very, very regularly.
01:18He was in last week for some time.
01:20I spoke exactly about this to him.
01:22I've been to see for myself on a number of occasions in Kyiv their capability.
01:26We are putting in backfill to that, working with him on industrial capability to produce drones with them.
01:31And I discussed this very issue with him last week.
01:34He did not, just for the record, he did not say that anything that they want to do is being
01:38held up by anything the UK is doing.
01:40On the contrary, he sees us as their foremost ally.
01:43And I'm very pleased that we've been able to achieve that, actually on a cross-party basis.
01:47I'm very pleased that we've been able to achieve that, actually on a cross-party basis.
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