I grateful to the right hon. Member. While I will not speculate on the Defence Secretary’s intentions, I certainly think that has had the effect of putting him out of step with the Chancellor and the Prime Minister such that he is no longer engaged in collective responsibility.
It seems to me that by talking up increases in the defence budget in cash terms rather than real terms, the Government are hiding behind recent high inflation. I will give the House a specific example. Following the publication of the PAC report on 8 March, the Prime Minister’s spokesperson, who was asked to respond to that report, replied:
“We are ensuring that we have the largest defence budget in history”.
That is so much spin as to be like a vortex—it is way off to suggest that. As we heard from the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), during the cold
war, defence spending was north of 6% of GDP. I am not advocating for defence spending to return to anything like those levels, because I recognise that we were dealing then with an eastern Europe in the grips of Russia and very much surrounded by and part of the Warsaw pact, with all its contributions assisting the Warsaw pact inventory, whereas now our spending is very much contributing to NATO’s defence of Europe and the deterrence of Moscow. I would understand the phrase “as soon as economic conditions allow” if we were talking about an absolute cost—for example, the cost of a frigate or a platform, with a price tag—but we are not; we are talking about a relative cost. The Government need to set out what those economic conditions are.
Finally, I turn to land. As we have heard rehearsed in the House many times, the Army is being reduced from 82,500 to 73,000 soldiers. Earlier, Mr Deputy Speaker talked about the considerable expertise in this place, but the greatest defence experience is probably in the other place. Those who rose to the top of their professions in the armed forces now speak with the greatest wisdom on defence. I would therefore like to quote from some of them, starting with three former Chiefs of the General Staff.
In January, Lord Richard Dannatt said:
“The bottom line is numbers do matter… It is a fact that at 73,000 the British Army has never been smaller”.
In March 2021, Lord David Richards said that “mass still matters”. In May 2022, General Sir Nick Carter said that
“in the order of 80,000”
soldiers are required to ensure that the UK could field a full division as part of a combined NATO force.
Although the current Chief of the General Staff is somewhat restricted in what he can say while in post, in June 2022 he said that the UK was facing a “1937 moment”, and that
“it would be perverse if the CGS was advocating reducing the size of the Army as a land war rages in Europe”.
I firmly advocate for the Army to be restored to that 83,000 figure. When will those economic conditions be met so that we might see 2.5% spent on defence?
1.46 pm