CHOGM, G7 and NATO Summits

Viscount Waverley Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

Certainly; that is a priority of the Ministry of Defence. We have been clear that we need to invest for the long term, and that is what we will continue to do. That is why we have increased defence spending by over £24 billion over the next four years and have said that we will be making further investments to reach 2.5% of GDP being spent on defence by the end of the decade.

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

My Lords, I think I heard the Leader of the House refer to agricultural investment; as a consequence of the war in Ukraine and the difficulties we all now face, it is right to consider this with a global approach. Moving on, recognising Togo and Gabon as aspirant members of the Commonwealth should, I hope, send a very convincing message to all our friends in La Francophonie that we in the Commonwealth would welcome an in-depth discussion with them. La Francophonie has tremendous opportunity for the UK. On that point—the Leader of the House may not be aware of this—was any attention paid to the situation with regard to Cameroon, which is exercising the minds of many?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

Yes, we were very pleased to agree the accession of Togo and Gabon. I do not believe that Cameroon was mentioned, but if that was the case, I will happily refer back to the noble Viscount. As for agriculture, he is absolutely right: as well as the various additional funds I mentioned, we also announced £17.7 million of funding through the FCDO’s green growth centre of expertise to improve the effective use of fertilisers and increase food production in countries including Rwanda, Kenya and Ghana.