L

Lord Coaker (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 14 November 2024

Debate

Defence: 2.5% GDP Spending Commitment

Contribution

Of course the Treasury sets the context of the budget within which defence operates. The 2.5% commitment is cast-iron; the discussion is about the timeframe. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced at the weekend that the 2.5% will be announced at a future fiscal event in the spring. The sequencing is everything. If we decided to spend billions of pounds on a project now and the defence review suggested that that was not the best use of money to meet future threats, the noble Baroness would be asking me why we had spent the money before knowing what those threats were.

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