My Lords, I welcome the Statement, but like others, I am slightly concerned about the gap between the rhetoric and the reality. Successive Governments have had a habit of defining success by financial input. Of the extra £5 billion, which I welcome, £3 billion is for nuclear—it is probably already held in the Treasury contingency and simply being drawn forward—and £2 billion is simply replacing munitions we have given to Ukraine. It is widely accepted that defence needs £11 billion just to stand still. That is a £6 billion deficit, meaning that there will have to be cuts. The reason why it is so important to know when we will meet 2.5% is that, without knowing that date, we do not know what needs to be cut and when. That is why we need an answer on that.
I declare my interest as a serving member of the Army. In pillar 2—“Deter, defend and compete across all domains” —paragraph 24 has the aspiration that with our military presence in the Baltics, we may be able to surge to a brigade; that is some 5,000 people. Ten years ago, we had 10,000 soldiers in Afghanistan. Twenty years ago, we had a division of 20,000 in Iraq. Yet now, we may be able to surge to a brigade in the Baltic states. If that does not underline to my noble friend the Minister the perilous state of our Armed Forces right now without adequate financial investment, I do not know what does.