Defence Funding
Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts(7 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The noble Lord seems to imply that this is a timing issue. The Government have heard all the messages coming from various quarters about the urgency and the threats we face. We do understand them, but the funds we are now going to put into the system are timed such that they can be most effective. For example, we will be spending on firing up the UK industrial base, but that cannot happen overnight. Our defence companies need multiyear certainty, which, of course, we get from the £10 billion commitment to a new munitions strategy, for example. Again, that does not happen overnight. We are content that the timing is right. As I say, we do not intend to issue defence bonds.
Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)
My Lords, now that I have heard about the Minister’s initiative, I am less personally concerned about the scale and esoteric source of the defence uplift. Like many, my prime emotion is relief, not jubilation. My concern is that the uplift is well spent. On behalf of government, can the Minister reassure the House that the priorities for the uplift will be keeping Ukraine in the fight this year and then re-establishing the credibility of conventional deterrence in Europe?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I can absolutely give that reassurance. In addition to firing up the UK industrial base and the £10 billion on the new munitions strategy, the third key area that the additional funds will be spent on is guaranteeing for as long as it takes support for Ukraine. Obviously, that will build on the billions of pounds in military support we have already committed to Ukraine, as well as the extra £0.5 billion announced by the Prime Minister alongside the funding uplift.
Stock Markets
Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
The noble Lord is right in one respect: both the rest of Europe and the UK face heightened energy prices as a result of the war in Ukraine, and jurisdictions such as the US do not face equal pressures. But the UK also faces a tightness in its labour market that we see in the US, for example, that is not seen in other European countries. Factors have come together to make things harder for the UK in the current circumstances.
Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)
Is it possible to produce a definitive ranking order of the causes of our economic woes, specifying war in Ukraine, Brexit, Covid and a defined period of government mismanagement? It seems to me that everybody hides behind a mix of them. Is it possible to have an independent and defined ranking order of them to cut away some of the dispute?
Baroness Penn (Con)
Our biggest economic challenge right now is the high levels of inflation that we are facing as a country, and the biggest driver of that inflation is heightened energy prices caused by the war in Ukraine. Yes, there are other factors at play, but I think those two things are undisputed.