Defence Budget and Transformation

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that our defence budget in the spending review period exceeds the 2% of GDP NATO guideline. What I said on the previous occasion, and have said publicly on a number of occasions, is that while in the medium term our NATO partners must increase their contribution to collective defence, in the short term, at a time when there is extreme fiscal pressure on nearly all the European NATO countries, it is not realistic to go around wagging the finger at them about the amount that they spend. I have chosen to focus my pitch to them on the need to render the budgets that they do have more effective by making their forces more deployable and more available to the alliance. That is the thrust of the message that I was trying to deliver in Germany the week before last.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

What impact does the Secretary of State expect the measures that he has announced to have on recruitment and retention in our armed forces, not only in respect of regulars but in respect of our challenging targets for the recruitment of reserves?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to that issue. Many people have asked me—and I have to say that I asked the question myself when I first entered the Ministry of Defence—why we are making service people redundant but are still recruiting. The answer, of course, is that because the armed forces are a bottom-fed organisation, we need to recruit even when we are reducing the overall size of forces. I hope that the greater confidence and clarity about the future will be an aid to recruitment, and I am sure that the greater role that the reserves will play in our overall force construction will be a great aid to recruitment in the Territorial Army and the air and naval reserves.