Oral Answers to Questions

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I had been hoping over the last few days to find something on which my right hon. Friend and I can agree, and we have now done so, because I absolutely endorse both legs of his proposition. The 2% is a minimum, and we comfortably exceed it at the moment, but it is important that other countries meet it, and, overall, it is important that the alliance continues to improve its investment.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

On Friday, the National Audit Office placed a serious question mark against the Government’s 2% commitment. Its report revealed that in order to fulfil the defence equipment plan following the collapse of the pound post-Brexit, the Ministry of Defence will have to use all its £11 billion contingency fund and make a further £6 billion of savings in defence spending across the board. Given that Trident is ring-fenced, will the Secretary of State tell the country whether it will be hard-pressed defence personnel and our conventional capabilities that will bear the brunt of those cuts?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

No. We have always been able to maintain conventional and nuclear forces in the past. The hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that the scale and success of our equipment programme depends on our securing and releasing the efficiencies to which we committed at the time of the strategic defence review, and that work is now in hand.

[Brendan O’Hara]

The National Audit Office report cast further doubt on the Type 26 programme:

“Major changes to the requirement for the Type 26 Global Combat Ship mean that costings for this…will be unclear until 2018.”

With an ageing fleet in desperate need of renewal, a looming budgetary crisis and the uncertainty caused by Brexit, cuts to numbers, and delays, how does the Secretary of State intend to make good on the promise to maintain 19 destroyers and frigates in the Royal Navy? For how much longer does he believe that the Royal Navy can respond to global threats with its current fleet?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

We set out our commitment to the size of the fleet in the strategic defence review. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman is so concerned about the budget for the Type 26 frigate, which is designed to protect the deterrent that he does not want to keep; that seems an odd project to be worried about. The terms of that contract have yet to be finalised, but I can assure him that the expansion of the Royal Navy is fully funded.