Rebecca Smith
Main Page: Rebecca Smith (Conservative - South West Devon)Department Debates - View all Rebecca Smith's debates with the HM Treasury
(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reeves)
I am pleased to update the House that I met the Secretary of State for Defence and the Chief of the Defence Staff yesterday to talk through the defence investment plan. The Ministry of Defence is producing a defence investment plan that will meet the scale of the challenges and meet the moment with increased readiness. I am confident that the new defence investment plan will be published before the NATO Ankara summit. It will involve more money spent more effectively and will meet the scale of the challenges facing our country.
Rebecca Smith
The former Defence Secretary has blown apart the defence investment plan, revealing that the Treasury was prepared to offer only a pitiful increase in defence spending—just 0.08% by 2030—despite growing threats across the world. At the same time, the Treasury continues to fork out billions for welfare and the net zero agenda. Innovative small and medium-sized enterprises in defence are effectively locked out of MOD contracts and denied the opportunity to scale their capabilities. As the Chief of the Defence Staff put it,
“the price of peace is increasing”.
Will the Chancellor commit this morning to filling the £28 billion gap in defence investment by 2030 to secure our position on the world stage, or will she stand in the way of the delivery of the DIP that we need?
Rachel Reeves
As I just said, the DIP will be published before the summit. It will involve more money spent more effectively, and it will meet the scale of the challenges we face. Frankly, I will take no lectures from the Conservatives, who left our armed forces, in the words of their former Defence Secretary, “hollowed out”. Our forces hit rock bottom for pay, morale and numbers. The Tories do not like to mention the £12 billion of cuts that they made to defence in their first five years in office. We are turning that around with the biggest uplift in defence spending since the end of the cold war. This Labour Government will continue to invest in defence, with contracts awarded to firms here in Britain to keep our country safe.