John Spellar
Main Page: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)Department Debates - View all John Spellar's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Johnny Mercer
That is an interesting intervention —in fact, I am just going to ignore it because it was pretty childish.
We must get our priorities right when it comes to defence. Over the weekend the Government announced that £2.3 billion would be put into artificial intelligence and driverless cars. Fantastic—great stuff—but when it comes to social policies such as those we cut our cloth according to what we can afford. When it comes to defence, we listen to the professionals who we ask to go and do the job for us and to wear the uniform. We ask them what we need and we provide them with what they need to keep us safe. As has been alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) time and again, the idea that we can come to this place and say, or sell it to the general public, that threats have intensified, diversified and increased so much that another security review needs to be conducted, and yet reduce the budget or capability for our armed forces to do that, is simply not credible. It will not be worn by the British public and it will not be worn by Back-Bench Conservative MPs.
Finally, all that I am asking for, and all that the MPs who have signed my letter, and MPs across the Conservative party, are asking for—we are the party of defence—is that we meet our manifesto commitment of a 2% of GDP spend and a 0.5% above inflation increase in the defence budget. That is the platform on which I stood at the general election, and I fully expect that commitment to be realised. We must get to a stage where we are being realistic about defence, and if the threats have increased, that must be met by a commensurate increase in money, commitment and willpower from both No. 11 and No. 10.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman and fellow member of the Defence Committee for giving way, but may I slightly correct him? He said that the Tories are the party of defence. They are the party that talks about defence. I fully accept the bona fides and the genuine intentions of the hon. Gentleman and many of his fellow Back Benchers, but in fact under “Options for Change” after the end of the cold war, it was the Tory party that slashed the—
James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. In the context of UK amphibious capability, Johnny Mercer.