Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

Defence Spending

Monday 10 February 2025 · 3 questions

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

Read the full transcript on Parliament.uk

At a glance

Answered 0 Partly answered 3 Not answered 0

Key points

  • Minister stated that the Government is committed to increasing defence spending to meet growing security threats.
  • Government has already increased defence spending by almost 3 billion for the next year.
  • Previous Government's pledge to reach 2.5% of GDP on defence spending by 2030 was described as an election gimmick.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 John Lamont Con Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
Defence
Context

The question arises from concerns about defence spending priorities. John Lamont references a deal to lease Diego Garcia for billions of pounds.

Question

So that my constituents can better understand the Government’s priorities, which does the Minister think that we will achieve first: a deal to lease Diego Garcia for billions of pounds, or spending 2.5% of GDP on defence?

Answer from The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)

Everyone agrees that we must increase defence spending to meet the increasing threats. This Government are delivering for defence by increasing defence spending, and we have already increased defence spending by almost £3 billion next year.

Partly answered

Not addressed: The specific prioritization between Diego Garcia lease deal and 2.5% GDP target

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Q2 Aphra Brandreth Con Chester South and Eddisbury
Defence
Context

The question stems from the UK's global security challenges and its commitments to NATO allies.

Question

It is clear that we face increasingly volatile and dangerous global security challenges, which is why the previous Government set a path to 2.5% of GDP being spent on defence by 2030. What conversations have the Minister and officials at the Ministry of Defence had with NATO counterparts, particularly from the United States, on increasing defence spending? What implications does he think his party’s lack of timeline for reaching 2.5% will have on the special relationship, given the new US Administration?

Answer from The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)

This country is at the forefront of defence spending in NATO, and we are ready to increase it to 2.5% of GDP. The hon. Lady talked about the previous Government’s plan for 2.5% of GDP. I have to tell her that that was an election gimmick, announced four weeks before the Prime Minister called the election; the Institute for Fiscal Studies described it as “misleading”, and the Institute for Government described it as “a work of fiction.”

Partly answered

Not addressed: Conversations with NATO counterparts and implications on special relationship

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Q3 James Cartlidge Con
Defence Foreign Affairs
Context

MP references the Prime Minister's statement that the base 'cannot operate' and notes previous Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron and Defence Secretary Grant Shapps rejected a similar deal due to intelligence concerns.

Question

When the Prime Minister said that the base “cannot operate”, he was referring to operations. That implies that there must be some kind of direct threat to satellite communications on Diego Garcia. The world will have seen that the Secretary of State has not defended that position—he is not leaning into it in any way—which makes us think this: given that the former Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron and the previous Defence Secretary Grant Shapps saw the same intelligence and rejected the deal, which has since got worse and more expensive, is not the obvious thing to scrap it, and to spend every penny that is saved on our armed forces?

Answer from The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)

The hon. Gentleman’s colleagues, of course, were responsible for 11 rounds of negotiation on the deal, and the Prime Minister’s point was that a lack of long-term legal certainty casts into doubt the operational security of the base. This deal will secure an operational guarantee for at least a century.

Partly answered

Not addressed: Specifically avoided addressing whether the current deal should be scrapped or if funds would be redirected to armed forces as requested

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