division_name: Strength of the UK&#8217;s Armed Forces
motion: <p class="indent" pid="a383.1/2" pwmotiontext="yes">That this House notes the Prime Minister&#8217;s 2019 election pledge that his Government would not cut the Armed Services in any form; further notes with concern the threat assessment in the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, that threats from other states to the UK and its allies are growing and diversifying; calls on the Government to rethink its plan set out in the Defence Command Paper, published in March 2021, CP411, to reduce key defence capabilities and reduce the strength of the Armed Forces, including a further reduction in the size of the Army by 2025; and calls on the Prime Minister to make an oral statement to Parliament by June 30 2021 on the Government&#8217;s plans to reduce the capability and strength of the Armed Forces.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a383.1/5" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;We will not be cutting our armed forces in any form. We will be maintaining the size of our armed forces&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a383.1/7" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;State threats to the UK&#8230;are growing and diversifying&#8221;,</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a383.1/10" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Russia continues to pose the greatest nuclear, conventional military and sub-threshold threat to European security.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a385.3/7" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;the standard whereby a credible army is judged&#8221;,</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a385.3/9" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;no longer taken seriously as a military power&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a385.3/11" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;damage our relationship with the US and our position in NATO&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a392.0/9" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;we will not be cutting our armed services in any form.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a392.0/11" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;We will be maintaining the size of the armed services&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a405.1/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;the pace and level of investment to live that statement&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a406.1/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a413.1/5" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;I would argue most strongly that it is our people that give the United Kingdom&#8217;s armed forces our qualitative edge&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a414.1/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;I hear it a lot on the Tory benches, this idea of a country that ruled the waves. Rule Britannia&#8230; I think that&#8217;s given way to a nostalgia rooted in the history of the Second World War that somehow says that we&#8217;re a small island nation that goes out punching above its weight, without ever really stopping to ask why on earth it is that we&#8217;re punching at all.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a415.0/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;cutting our armed services in any form.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="a422.3/7" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;the standard whereby a credible army is judged.&#8221;</p>