Oral Answers to Questions

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that the steel for the Queen Elizabeth-class carrier, a contract which was placed some time ago, came from British steel foundries. It is something that we consider, but we have to look after value for money when we place orders through our contractors, and steel supplies need to be available at a competitive cost, at a competitive time and at a competitive quality.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

13. Which elements of his Department’s expenditure will contribute both to the target of 2% of GDP for defence and to the target of 0.7% of GNI for overseas development assistance.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Michael Fallon)]

The Ministry of Defence directly funds overseas development assistance eligible activity up to £5 million a year, including disaster relief training and international capacity building. This counts towards the NATO 2% guideline. The costs of conflict, stability and security fund programme activities led by the Ministry of Defence, and security and humanitarian operations, which are partly refunded from the Department for International Development budget, will also contribute to the ODA target.

[Patrick Grady]

The ministerial team will notice that that is not a question about defence of the north coast. When Back Benchers cheered the two commitments on aid and military spending, I wonder if they were fully aware that that is, in effect, double counting of expenditure. Does the Minister accept that although this may be technically permitted, morally it is a contradiction in terms? Will he do all he can to minimise such double counting in the future?

[Michael Fallon]

Rules for what is counted and what is not counted are set for NATO expenditure by NATO and for overseas development expenditure by the OECD, so these are international rules. However, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. There is expenditure—defence and overseas aid—that counts towards security. Stabilising countries, preventing conflicts, peacekeeping—all that contributes to the security of our country, as well as that of some of the more fragile regions of the world.