Defence Spending Debate

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Department: Ministry of Defence

Defence Spending

Flick Drummond Excerpts
Wednesday 24th April 2024

(3 weeks, 2 days ago)

Commons Chamber
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Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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I should point out to the House that we have always said that we would do this when conditions allowed. Inflation fell to 3.2% last week—down from over 11%. Ten days ago, we saw Iran fire hundreds of missiles at a democratic state, and we were partly involved in the collective defence. It is therefore true to say that the world is showing itself to be even more dangerous. We have reached the point where we are seeing growth back in the economy and inflation falling, so now is the right time to do this. The hon. Lady asks about the sums of money that will go into, for example, cyber or space. I do not have those figures on me. I would be very happy to write to her with an overview, because it will take a bit of collation to work that out exactly from the existing budget. Quite a lot of what happens in strategic command, which covers those areas, crosses over into other parts of the armed forces, so it is not a simple question to answer.

Flick Drummond Portrait Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
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This is a very welcome statement, so I thank my right hon. Friend. He mentioned the Haythornthwaite report. When will we get an update, particularly on the plan to spend the £4 million investment in service families accommodation?

Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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Very soon.