National Armaments Director

Debate between Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Lincoln Jopp

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)]

Let me begin by thanking you, Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr Speaker and the Backbench Business Committee for selecting this debate, which, if I may say so, is particularly appropriate in Armed Forces Week. Let me also thank the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), who is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench, for being here to listen to my speech. I hope the Minister will answer a few of my questions. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), the Chairman of the Defence Committee, who would have joined me following our joint application for the debate, but his Committee has been away from Parliament on a visit.

The defence budget is one of the most important estimates that the House can debate and scrutinise. With war waging in Ukraine, the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict and with what is now happening in Iran, our world feels increasingly unstable. The Prime Minister has recently returned from the G7 and is now at the NATO summit, ensuring that our interests align with our European, AUKUS and American allies, which is critical. As General Walker, Chief of the General Staff, said last July, we must be ready for war within three years, and the rest of my speech is devoted largely to that theme.

I wish first to discuss the figures in the defence budget. I think that most Members are pleased that defence spending is now considered a priority. The strategic defence review announced in early June was welcomed, and confirmed that defence spending would rise from 2% to 2.5% of GDP by April 2027, with an extra 0.1% going towards intelligence and security services contributions. There was a further commitment to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP in the next Parliament, but it has been noted that no date has been set so far. The new announcement by the Prime Minister at the NATO summit suggests that the Government will expect to spend 5% of GDP on national security and defence by the end of the next Parliament or by 2035, which includes 3% spent on core defence spending and 1.5% spent on resilience and security.

I ask Members to bear with me while I go through the somewhat complicated figures that this involves. In 2024, 1% of GDP was about £28 billion, according to the House of Commons Library, but hopefully our GDP will increase as the years go by. Members should note critically that a percentage increase in the budget is not the same as an increase in the percentage of GDP, hence the much higher figures that I am about to give. According to the Treasury Red Book, the current Ministry of Defence budget for 2025-26 is £62.2 billion, which is around 2.2% of GDP. For the Government to reach the needed 2.5% of GDP by 2027—setting aside the fact that the MOD budget does not quite align with the NATO-compliant spending—the defence budget must increase to around £70 billion in 2027-28. With the extra 0.1% that I mentioned earlier, the total is £72.8 billion. Therefore, another £9 billion to £11 billion needs to be found in the next two years.

If we are to reach 3% of GDP in the next Parliament, the defence budget will need to equate to around £84 billion in current prices. After today’s announcement, the equating figures are 3.5% or £98 billion on core defence and 1.5% or £42 billion on resilience, so the total spending by 2035 will need to be £140 billion. These calculations are dependent on the GDP staying the same and not increasing, in which case the budget will of course increase as well. I simply ask the Minister: where is all this money coming from? It is a huge amount of money.

Given the failure to produce the defence investment plan alongside the strategic defence review, the SDR is merely a list of ambitions and aspirations, with few receipts and invoices attached. When he gave the ministerial statement on the SDR, I asked the Secretary of State to confirm when we would be able to scrutinise the figures, but I understand that the defence investment plan is still an unfinished piece of work and is not due to be published until the autumn. That is a long way off.

I am Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, which is always looking at how effectively money is spent, whether it could be spent more effectively to give the taxpayer best value for money, and whether spending is feasible. However, the Committee has not been able to fulfil its statutory role of scrutinising defence equipment spending for at least 12 months. The last defence equipment plan was published in November 2022, and it set out a 10-year spending plan for equipment procurement, costing around £305.5 billion. There was a £16.9 billion shortfall compared with the money that was then available.

I am pleased that the permanent secretary accepted the invitation to come to our Committee in April to discuss the equipment plan, but he did not come with any proposals as to how and when we might be able to scrutinise the relevant defence expenditure, to see whether the huge aspirations were affordable in the current budget, in the next budget of 3%, or in the following one of 3.5%. It is really important that Parliament has a timetable for when we can do that scrutiny.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentioned the equipment plan; does he share the Defence Committee’s frustration that the last time anyone was able to scrutinise that spending was in 2022? Is he aware that when Lord Robertson came to the Defence Committee to discuss the strategic defence review last week, he was surprised that the Defence Committee was being denied access to the equipment programme—as indeed are the Public Accounts Committee—meaning that the Government simply cannot be held to account for what they are spending money on?

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend has made the case eloquently, and I have also made it. The Minister will have heard and, hopefully, she might have something positive to say when she responds to the debate.