I would be glad to know, with the present Crisis in View, how many of those 75,000 have been procured, and whether we are likely to obtain that number when we are at the same time making greater demands upon that force both as to efficiency and as to the length of time the men must serve.

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that the original agreement was not a convention in the constitutional sense, but merely an agreement made in 1945 between the then Leader of the Opposition and the noble Baroness's predecessor, the then Labour Leader of the House, to try to ensure that there was not a constitutional Crisis in View of the large majority at that time enjoyed by the Labour Party in the other place and the large majority then enjoyed by the Conservative Party in this House?

I would not call that a Crisis in View of the considerable achievements, but at the same time as this malaise has occurred in the European Union - I say that despite the comments of my noble friend Lady Williams and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay - over the past two or three years it has been relatively successful in the development of its foreign and defence policies.