My hon. Friend is right to say that all defence postures need to be paid for, and that is why I am proud that we have the additional £5 billion that we have announced on top of the money previously announced in 2020. Obviously, when we are talking about expenditure as a percentage of GDP, one of the best things we can do is to grow the economy, which is why I full support the Prime Minister’s priority to grow the economy so that we can have a larger defence budget in absolute terms, because it will be a percentage of a growing economy. I highlight the fact that that is in stark contrast to the lack of commitment to a proportion of defence spending from those on the Opposition Front Bench, along with no credible plan to grow the economy. I take the point my hon. Friend makes to heart.
Integrated Review Refresh
Proceeding contribution from
James Cleverly
(Conservative)
in the House of Commons on Monday, 13 March 2023.
It occurred during Ministerial statement on Integrated Review Refresh.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
729 c553 
Session
2022-23
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2024-04-11 18:57:34 +0100
URI
http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Commons/2023-03-13/2303137000058
In Indexing
http://indexing.parliament.uk/Content/Edit/1?uri=http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Commons/2023-03-13/2303137000058
In Solr
https://search.parliament.uk/claw/solr/?id=http://hansard.intranet.data.parliament.uk/Commons/2023-03-13/2303137000058