Julian Lewis
Main Page: Julian Lewis (Conservative - New Forest East)Department Debates - View all Julian Lewis's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(9 months, 1 week ago)
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James Cartlidge
To be fair to the hon. Gentleman, he makes an important point about the importance of alliances. NATO is fundamental to the defence of our country, the wider western world and our allies beyond. Critically, to put this in context when we talk about the state of the armed forces, which is what the urgent question is about, and the alliances that he referred to, let us remember that we have just launched Steadfast Defender, which is one of the largest ever NATO exercises, involving 96,000 personnel, of which almost 20,000 are from the UK. I believe that we make up 40% of the land forces. That is an extraordinary contribution by the UK. We also offer our nuclear deterrent to NATO. We are supporting our allies, we stand together under article 5, and we should all do everything possible to support NATO in its 75th year.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
May I commend to anyone interested in the historical context a report produced by the Defence Committee in July in 2019 called, “Shifting the Goalposts? Defence Expenditure and the 2% Pledge: An Update”, HC 2527? It shows that for the last 20 years of the cold war this country spent between 5.6% and 4.1% of GDP, calculated in the same way we do today, on defence. Does that not show both sides of the House that we have an awful long way to go now that there is a hot war in Europe before we match what we used to do when there was a cold war in Europe?
James Cartlidge
My right hon. Friend put that eloquently, and he speaks with great passion and expertise on the cold war and our recent history. As he knows, in the cold war era we had the working assumption that an invasion—or certainly a confrontation—could be launched on the border in Germany very quickly. We had a huge number of forces deployed, and given that threat we spent, understandably, a higher percentage of GDP on defence. Since then, we thought we had a more peaceful era. Those illusions have been shattered by Putin, and we have all had to wake up to that. That is why we have done so much to support Ukraine and, yes, why we will do everything possible to support our armed forces.