Ukraine

John Baron Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I think that, when we consider our actions, it will be important for us to be clear about these matters, so I shall spend a few minutes talking about them, but first I will give way another couple of times.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

The Foreign Secretary is being very generous in giving way. He has been absolutely right to be robust in his response to this Russian aggression. He mentioned that there were 20,000 Russian troops in Crimea. While no one is advocating military intervention, does this not remind us that perhaps we should be fundamentally reassessing how much we spend on our armed forces? Although we may have the fourth or fifth largest defence budget, we rank 30th when it comes to deploying those forces overseas. That is a nonsense, given the extent of our global interests.

[Mr Hague]

What my hon. Friend has said may take us on to wider debates, but I should point out that we are one of the few countries in NATO that spend 2% or more of GDP on defence. I think that only four NATO countries do that now. I have argued in the past—including at NATO meetings—that other nations will need to increase their percentages over the coming years.