Defence Spending Priorities: NATO Summit

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My noble friend refers to an important issue: how we transport that grain, if possible. Discussions are taking place among the different partner countries as to what solutions there might be. There are no Royal Navy craft in the Black Sea. My noble friend will be aware that the Montreux convention governs maritime activity there, and that has been deployed by Turkey.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, was not the most welcome outcome of the Madrid summit NATO’s agreement to admit Finland and Sweden? Far from weakening NATO, Putin’s actions have strengthened it. Alongside that, is it not clear that we need to review the cuts to tank numbers, cuts to C130 transport planes and cuts of 10,000 troops? Is the chair of the Defence Select Committee not right when he says that 2.5% of GDP on defence spending by the end of the decade is too little, too late?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As the noble Lord is aware, people will have varying views on the appropriate percentage of GDP to spend on defence. We have laid down a clearly structured plan based on the integrated review and the defence Command Paper, and we regularly make available progress reports—for example, our annual review of the equipment plan—on where we are in the delivery of all that. We constantly assess need and identify and assess threat. We try to make sure that the two are aligned and that we meet the one with the other, and that is a sensible way to proceed.