DEFENCE by definition is unlike other arms of government in that it demands a high degree of secrecy.

But taxpayers who are funding millions of pounds in secret defence contracts are entitled to feel suspicious when they hear that details of this spending are being withheld on the grounds of national security. Not because the Ministry of Defence would be doing anything sinister the far more likely scenario is they are doing something incompetently.

How then can an audit commission identify and measure such incompetence whilst being shielded from the taxpayers' right to information under the cloak of secrecy?

K PATTISON,

Greenway Gardens,

Trowbridge.