Defence: Budget

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord’s comments about the importance of today. We must work endlessly to promote peace, which of course is partly the result of the defence budget, but is also something we do via our political, economic and aid budgets. There are many views on the appropriate level of the defence budget. All parties are considering what they believe an appropriate level of defence expenditure should be as they begin to think about the spending review, which will be conducted early in the next Parliament.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, is it not the case that the size of our defence forces ought to relate to the threat that we face? Is the noble Lord satisfied that the present size of our forces is sufficient for the new threats currently appearing?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the threats that we currently face are obviously very different from those that we have faced in the past. We have accepted that we would have a smaller but more flexible defence force, enabling us to deliver one enduring operation or two non-enduring operations. We are still committed to that. We are also spending increasingly more on cyber expenditure, including some £210 million next year on the national cybersecurity programme.