Defence: 2.5% GDP Spending Commitment Debate

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Department: Ministry of Defence

Defence: 2.5% GDP Spending Commitment

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts
Monday 11th November 2024

(2 days, 8 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
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John Healey Portrait John Healey
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Indeed; that is one reason why, early doors in Washington, the Prime Minister not only reaffirmed our iron-clad commitment to increasing defence spending to 2.5% but said that the strategic defence review comes first, as a pathway to 2.5%. That is exactly so that we can ensure that we increase what we spend, but also spend it better.

Caroline Dinenage Portrait Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
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In 2023, I asked the Secretary of State’s colleague, the right hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), who is now the Education Secretary, how Labour’s plans for VAT on school fees would impact the continuity of education allowance for forces families. I was told that I

“need not be concerned about what we are discussing today.”—[Official Report, 11 January 2023; Vol. 725, c. 570.]

It is two years on and VAT on school fees goes live in January, but details of the rates of continuity of education allowance still have not been articulated to the forces families in my constituency. As the proud MP for a military constituency, I can tell the Secretary of State that I am concerned and my constituents are concerned. What is the plan to better communicate with them?

John Healey Portrait John Healey
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I am sorry that our confirmation of the steps we are taking from January has not reached the hon. Lady. I will ensure that they are. There will be an uprating in the continuity of education allowance, which will ensure that our armed forces who take advantage of the allowance will be able to get up to 90% of the school fees they have to pay covered by that allowance, and that that takes into account any rise in school fees as a result of the VAT being levied.