Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

Departmental Funding

Monday 5 July 2021 · 2 questions

Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.

Read the full transcript on Parliament.uk

At a glance

Answered 1 Partly answered 1 Not answered 0

Key points

  • The 2020 spending review settlement for defence provided a cash increase of more than 24 billion over four years compared with last year's budget.
  • The UK spends less on personnel as a percentage of its defence budget than most NATO countries.
  • The Secretary of State stated that the UK's defence budget includes significant expenditure on capital equipment for expeditionary armed forces.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 Dave Doogan SNP Angus and Perthshire Glens
Defence
Context

No specific background event or statistic mentioned, but questions about overall funding adequacy are common in parliamentary debates.

Question

What recent assessment has been made of the adequacy of funding allocated to the Department?

Answer from Ben Wallace

The 2020 spending review settlement for defence provided a cash increase of more than £24 billion over four years compared with last year's budget. That represents an above inflation increase in capital and resource spending over the period, and exceeds the Government's commitment to increase the defence budget by 0.5% above inflation in each year of this Parliament.

Answered
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Q2 Dave Doogan SNP Angus and Perthshire Glens
Defence
Context

The MOD's spending on personnel is criticized as being low compared to other NATO countries, with concerns over current recruitment difficulties and living conditions for service members.

Question

In the whole of NATO, only Luxembourg spends less on its personnel than the UK. In 2020, the MOD spent just 34% of its budget on personnel—half the figure that Belgium spends. Does the Secretary of State believe that it is the woeful lack of investment in our personnel that is driving the current recruitment challenges in our armed forces, or is it the chronic accommodation that he expects our service personnel to live in that is to blame? Soon, the size of the Army will be at its lowest since 1714. How does the MOD splashing £200 million on a new royal yacht help with these challenges in our armed forces?

Answer from Ben Wallace

I think the hon. Gentleman does not understand how we spend our money in the defence budget; that is 34% of a very large budget on armed forces that are expeditionary and require lots of capital equipment. Of course, the proportion that we spend on human beings compared with equipment will be less than a country such as Belgium, which potentially has a large personnel budget but very little capital budget. That simply explains the different proportion. It does not mean that we spend less. Our forces' salaries, and terms and conditions, are comparably better than in most countries—not only in NATO, but across the world. It is just that we choose to buy things to put our people in, such as Boxers or aircraft; that is simply the reality of it.

Partly answered

Not addressed: The specific concern about recruitment challenges due to poor investment and living conditions was not directly addressed.

How: I Think The Hon. Gentleman Does Not Understand How We Spend Our Money In The Defence Budget

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