Mrs Kemi Badenoch

I heard what—[Interruption.] Wait for it—wait for it! What Ben Wallace said was that spending had fallen under all Governments. The last time spending was at 3% was under a Conservative Government. Yes, while we welcome the increase—something that we supported—can I remind the House that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is a man who sat in the shadow Cabinet and tried to make Prime Minister a man who said we should not even be in NATO at all? I do not need to take any lectures from him. The world is changing. We need to spend more on defence. He did not answer the question about when we will get to 3%, yet he knows up until 2031 how much he is going to be spending on welfare. He does not know. That is in the Red Book; the Red Book has no money allocated for defence. We need to move from ambition to commitment. This is important because it is not just about money. If the Prime Minister is deploying troops to Ukraine, those troops need to know that we have their backs. Last week, seven former SAS commanders warned that Labour’s Northern Ireland Troubles Bill will “wreck” our special forces. It was not me who said that; it was the SAS. In November, nine retired four-star generals warned that his Bill was “a direct threat to national security”. Even his own Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner has said our veterans are being treated “worse than terrorists”. Is it not madness to be putting veterans in the dock for serving their country at the same time that he is deploying today’s soldiers into Ukraine?