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Shaun Ley (interviewer): Just before we came on air I spoke to the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, and began by asking what areas the new National Security Strategy would focus on.

William Hague (Foreign Secretary): We have to make sure that we are equipped for the twenty first century and that means in foreign policy terms that we have to be making strong, new

connections with the emerging powers of the world, we’ve started on that already as a Government. That will also help to underpin our security.

SL: The question though is whether you’re going for the right solutions and, for example, the idea that we’re going to have two enormous new aircraft carriers that may or may not come on

line and be fully commissioned in the foreseeable future yet the Navy is going to be cut in terms of the number of ships and some reports today suggesting from fifty down to as few as twenty

…

SL: Hillary Clinton made pretty clear that the US Government was worried by what it was seeing of predictions of the scale of cuts, it’s now, we’re told, going to be about an eight per cent

cut, that’s pretty much been acknowledged by the Government. What reassurance were you able to offer her?

WH: Well a lot of reassurance. Hillary Clinton expressed her concerns about NATO as a whole, about Europe as a whole and its contribution to defence, I discussed this in some detail with her

in Brussels on Thursday evening.

WH: But not specifically singling out Britain in those concerns. And what I was able to say to her is that we will maintain a very broad width of military capabilities, that this, this is a

country that will continue to have an independent nuclear deterrent, formidable intelligence agencies. It will continue to have armed forces that can be deployed around the globe, it will

continue to have, you were asking about the navy, some of the best equipped warships in the world and some very effective Hunter Killer submarine, one of the most respected armies in the

world.

So this remains, in NATO terms, a military power of the first rank and that is not going to change but have we had a problem …

SL: You didn’t mention the Air Force in that list of our great …

SL: … of our great service achievements that will still be left after this review.

**WH: **… and we will still have an Air Force that packs a real punch as well. So I wasn’t trying to give an exclusive list but do we have to save some money across the vast majority of

budgets in Government? Yes we do.

SL: The rest of the Spending Review will be announced mid week by the Prime Minister, are you worried by how the public will react to these announcements or will you be putting on the tin

hat just in case?

WH: Well we don’t think it’s going to be easy but it is necessary, there is no escape from this.