Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Laura Kyrke-Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

Twenty years ago, I joined the Royal Marines. Roughly a year later, I was deployed to Afghanistan. I remember the challenges we faced: daily attacks from rockets and mortars and daily threats of improvised explosive devices, and the massive underfunding and disappointments with the Ministry of Defence’s procurement system. Many of us had to buy our own body armour. We ran out of desert boots had to walk around in 40° heat in black boots. We were driving weapons-mounted installation kit Land Rovers, which provided no protection against the landmines in the area.

I understand that defence underfunding is not new. However, since 2010, when the UK last spent 2.5% of GDP on defence, a decade of austerity under the Conservative Government has completely hollowed out the capability of our armed forces. With Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine now in its third year, it has never been more important for our military to rebuild its capability to show strength and support for our allies in Europe. I completely back our Prime Minister and his decision to increase defence spending back to 2.5% of GDP, and his ambition to go further in the next Parliament.

This is the right course of action. The most effective way to ensure peace in Europe is through strength. However, state-on-state conflict is not the only conflict that threatens us in the UK. There are more active conflicts across the globe than at any time since the end of the second world war—in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar and the Sahel—and we need a strong military to protect our citizens and deter our enemies.

However, hand in hand with defence is our vital spending on international development. When I was in Afghanistan, serving alongside British soldiers and marines were humanitarian workers, doctors and engineers. Our armed forces were working side by side with aid workers, just as British-backed aid workers are now doing in Ukraine alongside the brave Ukrainian armed forces. There are so many stories of the bravery of aid workers across the world’s conflict zones, where fighting is causing destruction, starvation and violence against women.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing deeply fragile and unstable conflicts such as Afghanistan into this discussion. Does he agree that aid plays a deeply stabilising role in such conflicts and, as such, contributes to global stability and security and to our own national security? Does he agree that that should be recognised in the tough choices we have to make on development spending?

[Alex Ballinger]

Absolutely. I think that those of us who have served would recognise that development and defence are completely complementary. When we reduce our development spending, our defence spending needs to go up.

After leaving the Royal Marines, colleagues and I worked with civil society in Syria, helping to keep hopes of a different, more tolerant country alive during that civil war. Those groups are probably now the best hope for Syria’s civil society and for a more tolerant and stable country.

Aid helps to mitigate the worst impacts of conflict and to prevent further conflict. I am concerned that cutting our development budget so deeply will undermine our ability to stabilise fragile states, reduce the drivers of extremism and stop further conflicts emerging. The implications of that will be felt here in the UK, with a greater chance of spikes in food and energy prices, increased migration and threats from extremist groups. Our military and security services will face those challenges at a time when their attention should be on Ukraine. While I wholly support raising our defence spending, I encourage the Government to look over the next two years at opportunities to avoid such drastic cuts to our aid budget, in particular our investments in conflict zones and on conflict prevention. Each pound we spend on conflict prevention can save £16 in aid to mitigate the destruction caused by conflict.

I welcome the pledge the Prime Minister made for an international fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace last December, and I hope that that remains a priority for the FCDO after the latest announcements. I strongly support the increase in defence spending announced last week, but, as a former marine, I also urge the Government to value the critical role our aid budget plays in delivering vital aid in conflict zones and preventing conflicts altogether.