This week Parliament started a two-day debate on the Government's Defence White Paper. This is one of the most important documents brought to the House and yet I suspect it will receive scant coverage in the media. It seems obsessed with the machinations surrounding the selection of Labour's candidate in the London Mayoral elections.

As a prelude to the debate, the Defence Select Committee, comprising members of all political parties, undertook its own response to the White Paper and very revealing it was too.

One of its memorable paragraphs reads: "There is a fundamental implausibility in the total efficiency claimed by the MoD over the years."

I find myself in entire agreement with the committee when they say: "Government and resources have to be brought back into line or we risk finding ourselves stumbling from one crisis to the next."

When we ask young men and increasingly young women to risk their lives on our behalf we have an overwhelming duty to ensure that we give them the best possible equipment and resources that we can manage.

We know that serious questions have been raised about the reliability of the equipment used in Kosovo. Major procurement programmes are subject to delay and overspend.

The three percent efficiency savings seem to be at the heart of many of the day to day stresses and strains on the budget. If the Government want not only to reduce this pressure but also improve morale they should abandon this measure.

We need to rebalance the partnership with the United States within NATO. Europe has to take a far greater responsibility for its own defence. That should not be detrimental to our relationship with the US. We in Britain have a responsibility to ourselves and to Europe to say when we believe that our interests are not being properly served.

Europe collectively spends $160 billion annually on defence and we should get much better value for money. European defence does not involve a European army or the taking of majority decisions when hostilities occur.

We must not think that insularity is sufficient to deal with the evolving political balance in NATO.

Britain has a key role to play in both NATO and the European Union but to remain credible we must ensure sufficient resources are available to match the undoubted strength of our military personnel.

Defence cuts year on year may be popular in some quarters but there is now a clear need to decide if we have gone just a bit too far.