Defence Spending

Debate between Lord Beamish and Peter Luff

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

No, it is not the same, because the Government and the hon. Gentleman have got the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s fiscal straitjacket around them—his commitments to reducing spending. There is a big difference, and it gives us a lot of leeway in making sure that we can deliver on our defence needs and foreign affairs commitments, whereas what the Government are putting forward will lead to a situation in which the budget is set, and there is no way that they can meet those commitments.

Something else has come out in this debate. The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), who is in a good position because he was a Minister in the Department at the time, and the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Simon Reevell) raised the idea that the Prime Minister convinced his Back Benchers and the military to take the pain of the 8% cut in 2010, and that somehow once we reached the sunny uplands—I think the hon. Member for Dewsbury referred to that—we would have an increase in the budget. That is clearly not going to happen if the Prime Minister’s commitment to deficit reduction is followed. We have come to expect such smoke and mirrors from the Prime Minister. We have had that narrative again; I do not for a minute question the former adviser of the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), who has written in today’s newspapers in a similar vein. It is clear that that commitment cannot be met if the Prime Minister is to keep to the deficit reduction process laid out in the autumn statement.

We need honesty from the Government on what they are going to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) and I are not going to stand here and make the ludicrous promises we heard at the last general election from those now on the Government Benches. They promised a larger Army, more helicopters, and more of everything for the armed forces, but the Conservatives reverted to type, as they always do in government. The hon. Member for Dewsbury said that this was a right-left issue. No, it is not. The Conservatives’ record in office shows that they always cut defence, whereas Labour has always protected defence.

[Sir Peter Luff]

I genuinely want this to be a bipartisan debate, but could the hon. Gentleman clarify the shadow Chancellor’s comments in The Times on Tuesday this week, when he stated that his party would go

“nowhere near the huge scale of defence cuts you are going to see under the Conservatives”?

Does that mean that Labour will commit to at least the 1%-plus real-terms-equivalent budget increase?

[Mr Jones]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is not standing for re-election, but he needs to understand that the huge impediment to his party’s adopting the 2% target is the autumn statement. His party will have to bin that if it wants to commit to the 2%. This allows us a lot more flexibility. We will ensure that the findings of the defence review are what drive our defence needs. That is in contrast to what happened in 2010 and what is happening now, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer driving the debate with the support of the Prime Minister.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) made a clear commitment that his party would seek a commitment to the 2% expenditure target from any other party before supporting it in a future Government. The Prime Minister has employed a lot of diversionary tactics in the past 24 hours, because he knows that he has a problem in this area. He clearly wanted to massage the figures, but that has now been blown out of the water.

Then we had the nonsense last night of the Defence Secretary writing to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition about whether the nuclear deterrent would be up for negotiation in any future deal with the Scottish National party. I want to nail that one quite clearly: no, it would not. We are not going to do what the Conservatives did when they came into office in 2010. They played fast and loose with the nuclear deterrent by doing a deal with the Liberal Democrats to delay the implementation of the decision to replace Trident, which the Labour Government had already voted for. It was this Government, in the deal that was done in May 2010, who delayed that implementation, so I am not going to take any lessons from the Conservatives about doing deals, or using our nuclear deterrent in some kind of political poker game as a means of getting into office.

Defence

Debate between Lord Beamish and Peter Luff

Thursday 23rd February 2012 Ministerial Corrections

[Mr Kevan Jones]

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the oral answer of 8 February 2012, Official Report, columns 300-01, on Libya, what the cost of the new C17 aircraft will be.

[Official Report, 20 February 2012, Vol. 540, c. 469W.]

Letter of correction from Peter Luff:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on 20 February 2012.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Peter Luff]

The cost of the new C-17 aircraft is subject to final commercial negotiations but, as announced by the Prime Minister on 8 February 2012, Official Report, columns 300-01, it is expected to be in the region of £300 million.

The correct answer should have been: