UK Parliament / Open data

Defence and Security Review (NATO)

This has been a very well-informed debate in which we have had 15 speakers. I congratulate the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) on his opening remarks, which showed that the House made the right choice in selecting him as Chair of the Defence Committee. He not only put forward his usual well-informed arguments but made a very convincing case for why we are facing certain threats from Russia, in particular.

The main issue has been spending 2% of GDP for our NATO commitments. That was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, by the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), by my hon. Friends the Members for York Central (Sir Hugh Bayley) and for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), by the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), by the hon. Members for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) and for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), and by the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who called the 2% figure a line in the sand. The hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) also spoke in favour of it, as did the weaponised dove, the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), who argued for more than 2%, and the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael).

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
593 c775 
Session
2014-15
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Back to top