I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman, because I suspect that he was put up to ask that question by his Front-Bench colleagues, who appear not to understand the way in which departmental budgets work in government. In particular, they do not appear to understand that Departments are responsible to Parliament for their spending. If they understood that, the Shadow Defence Secretary might not have told the News of the World that the underspend represented some sort of cut, as the hon. Gentleman's question suggests.

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman or his Front-Bench colleagues take a little tutorial from the Library on how departmental underspends are dealt with year on year, particularly for defence. Underspends are carried into the next financial year and are spent on defence. If the hon. Gentleman is worried about underspending, I recommend that he ask the House of Commons Library what the underspend was for 1994–95 and 1995–96. He will find that the underspends then were entirely comparable to the amount that he is concerned about today. I should be interested to know whether he asked any questions about that at the time.