"As Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for the Armed Forces, I feel very strongly that our service people are being badly let down by the sadly very necessary defence cuts and redundancies they are presently facing.
"The Government had to do it because of the appalling financial situation inherited from the previous government. But that does not stop me, as a backbench MP and champion of the Armed Forces in Parliament, from speaking up on their behalf" said James Gray, MP for North Wiltshire, speaking after the debate in Parliament on Thursday.
In his speech during the debate James Gray said "We are living in an incredibly dangerous and uncertain world, and we should be preparing our defences for that uncertainty. The Royal Air Force is being cut in half and the Navy is being emasculated. It is my view that this country no longer has the capability to do the things that we have always done."
Mr Gray continued, "I do not believe, given the cuts that we are now facing, that we will be able to carry out our moral duty to lead the world and to intervene for good around the world. We are hampering ourselves. For this reason, I believe that defence spending and budgets should be separate from those of schools and hospitals and from other parts of the national budget. We have a moral duty to do certain things in the world, and we should not allow our economic situation to prevent us from doing them."
North Wiltshire MP James Gray has welcomed the news of a 10-year deal between Royal Mail and the Post Office, securing the future of services without resorting to the failed closures programme which dominated Labour’s time in government.
