Defence Spending

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing this important debate. It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), who made an excellent speech. I want to declare an interest: I have served in the Territorial Army for a few years, and I am currently in the process of joining the Royal Auxiliary Air Force Regiment.

The year 2014 is one of commemorations, with the centenary of the beginning of the first world war and the 70th anniversary of D-day. In an increasingly unstable world, those commemorations are timely reminders that freedom is not free. This year, we have seen the results of Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine and the renewed insurgency in Iraq, and we are facing a growing threat from jihadists around the world. It is therefore more vital than ever to ensure that we spend enough on defence, and it is crucial to have the political will to defend our freedom and our interests. As the former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said,

“weakness is provocative. Time and again it has invited adventures which strength might well have deterred.”

It is not mere coincidence that after the US President failed to enforce his red lines in regard to the Syrian civil war and, specifically, the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, we saw Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine a few months later, with the chaos and bloodshed that has followed. I believe that a major factor in the US President’s failure to enforce his red lines was this House’s refusal to back military action in Syria, and we all have to take some responsibility for that.

NATO is the cornerstone of British defence and security policy, and it is vital for our and our allies’ collective security, as hon. Members have said. It has secured the peace in western Europe for nearly 70 years. I want to make a few points about the importance of our allies’ defence budgets in relation to NATO. We expect—and we need to demand—that NATO members that want to benefit from the security of the alliance should fulfil their obligations on defence spending. In 2006, the member countries of NATO agreed to commit a minimum of 2% of their GDP on defence spending, as hon. Members have said. Such a commitment clearly indicates a country’s willingness to contribute to the alliance’s common defence efforts, and it has an important impact on the overall perception of the alliance’s credibility, so why, according to NATO figures for 2013, have only Estonia, the US and Greece—alongside the UK—invested 2% or more of their GDP in their defence budgets?

The combined wealth of the non-US allies, measured in GDP, exceeds that of the United States. Historically, the US has always spent more on defence, as we know. However, non-US allies together now spend less than half as much on defence as the United States. The US spent 4.4% of its GDP on defence in 2013. NATO members are clearly over-reliant on the US, which is under the same pressure as other nations to reduce its defence spending. US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has recommended that US forces should be shrunk by 13% by 2017. We know that the US is increasingly focused on the strategic challenge from the Pacific, and expects us in Europe to take more responsibility for our own defence.

Today, US defence expenditure effectively represents 73% of the defence spending of the alliance as a whole. I therefore agree that NATO is over-reliant on the US for the provision of essential capabilities, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, air-to-air refuelling, ballistic missile defence, airborne electronic warfare and carrier strike responsibility.

According to NATO figures this week, we in the UK put 2.4% of our GDP into the defence budget in 2013, even though our Government were faced with sorting out one of the largest fiscal deficits in our history. Along with France and Germany, we represent more than 50% of the non-US allies’ defence spending in NATO.

Given their strategic position and their 20th-century history, what is particularly surprising about NATO’s figures for the estimated spending on defence in 2013 is that Latvia and Lithuania, who joined NATO in 1999, respectively spent only 0.9% and 0.8% of their GDP on defence. Luxembourg, the home country of our friend Mr Juncker, is estimated to have spent only 0.4% of its GDP on defence last year; the figure fell from 0.7% when Mr Juncker became Prime Minister of Luxembourg to 0.5% when he left office. Other NATO allies that spend 1% or less of their GDP on defence are Belgium, Hungary, the Slovak Republic and Spain.

The NATO Secretary-General said in May last year to the European Commission:

“If European nations do not make a firm commitment to invest in security and defence, then all talk about a strengthened European defence and security policy will just be hot air.”

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), the former Secretary of State for Defence, said in 2011:

“You cannot expect to have the insurance policy but ask others to pay the premiums.”

It is vital that all NATO members share the burden and responsibility of our collective security. We in the UK are playing our part in NATO and maintaining our commitment. I urge the Government, at a minimum, to maintain the GDP spend on defence and, as others have said, to increase it when the financial conditions allow.

Finally, two years ago I was privileged to be invited to the unveiling by the Queen of the Bomber Command memorial in Green park. My grandfather served with Bomber Command in world war two, first as a rear gunner and then as a navigator. I found one inscription on the memorial particularly poignant. It was a quote from Pericles:

“Freedom is the sure possession of those who have the courage to defend it.”

We must do so.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman should read chapter 11, on page 8 of the report.

We believe the approach adopted is damagingly short-sighted and plays fast and loose with our nation’s security.

[Jack Lopresti]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jones]

I would do, but unfortunately I do not have the time.

Our approach is clear. Instead of having the Treasury-led SDSR conducted by this Government, we believe the UK needs a defence review that is genuinely strategic as well as financially viable. For us, these two factors are two sides of the same coin. This country needs an SDSR that provides strategic leadership and asks the most fundamental questions of all in terms of defence: what do we want our armed forces to actually do? As the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), outlined in his Royal United Services Institute speech, we have got to be ambitious, but we also believe that to withdraw from the rest of the world as though it is not part of our problem is neither desirable nor possible to achieve. We are also realistic and know there are no gains to be made from promises that cannot be delivered; we saw too many of those at the last election by the Conservative party.

It is only by asking these questions and delivering the strategic leadership this Government have signally failed to offer that we can do our armed forces and the British public justice.