Defence and Security Review (NATO) — House of Commons, 2015-03-02
Topic: Defense
Mark Gino Francois (Conservative, Centre-right): What I agree with is that we inherited a chaotic defence budget from the Labour party. That is what it bequeathed to us and that is what we have had to deal with from day one. I will come on to our position on the 2% commitment, which I believe is superior to the hon. Gentleman’s position Crucially, we are making full provision for the successor deterrent system. It is a shame that the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) is no longer in his place, as I wanted to tell him two things. I will be visiting Barrow very shortly. We will confirm the date with him in the usual way, but I want to see Barrow for myself. He also asked for a commitment, which I am happy to give him, to the seventh Astute submarine. We are determined that we will complete the seven boats in the Astute programme before transiting to a successor programme based on continuous-at-sea deterrence with four deterrent submarines We are also significantly increasing our investment in cyber-security, an issue raised by a number of hon. Members. I can assure the House that this does not relate only to defensive cyber. We need to ensure our armed forces are equipped with cutting-edge capabilities across all environments On the NATO summit and events in Ukraine, we have deplored Russian aggression in Ukraine from the outset. We urge all sides to take the necessary steps to implement the second Minsk agreement of 12 February, which provides a framework for stabilising the situation in eastern Ukraine. Russia must abide by its commitments at Minsk. This means making the separatists withdraw their heavy weapons, stopping continued separatist attacks so that an effective ceasefire can take hold, and allowing effective monitoring to take place. There have been some early encouraging signs over the past few days, with a lull in the level of fighting in the east and some heavy weapons relocated, but we have seen this pattern before. We will continue to monitor the situation and hope that it is not reversed. It is important that we look at actual deeds in this context and follow them closely Unity in the alliance is the best response to these challenges. We demonstrated that at the Wales summit, in particular with the readiness action plan, including the development of a very high readiness joint task force. On 5 February this year, at the NATO defence ministerial, the UK committed to lead the VJTF in 2017, as one of six framework nations, alongside France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain. The Wales summit saw the alliance commit to assurance measures for our eastern allies. Our contribution will be even greater in 2015 than last year, with over 4,000 UK personnel set to deploy on various exercises in eastern alliance territory. In particular, Exercise Dragon will be a divisional level exercise in Poland—something that I note the Chairman of the Select Committee called for in his speech. It is due to take place in September and the UK will contribute 1,000 troops, plus armoured vehicles. We will also participate in Baltic air policing. Four Typhoons will operate alongside Norwegian aircraft between May and August 2015, working to secure NATO’s airspace over our Baltic allies, demonstrating alliance solidarity in practice The Wales summit also committed NATO allies to reverse the decline in defence spending. The UK is one of the few NATO nations to have consistently spent 2% of GDP on defence. Importantly, we also exceed the target to invest more than 20% of our budget on equipment. We have the second biggest defence budget in NATO and the largest in the European Union. These are important points that we should not forget. In financial year 2015-16, we will maintain that 2% of spending. Following 2015-16, that will be subject to the next spending review, which is due to take place after the election, but it will not be a zero-based review, in the way that Labour argues.