Middle East: Deployment of British Armed Forces
Debate between Lord Tugendhat and Earl of Minto(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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The Earl of Minto (Con)
My Lords, we do not comment on comments like that.
Lord Tugendhat (Con)
My Lords, thanks to our armed services are all very well, but they are now being very much stretched. It would be good to hear something from the Government about increasing the defence budget rather than the taxes that can be lowered.
The Earl of Minto (Con)
My Lords, I am sure that most of the House is fully aware of where I sit on this. We have a finite amount of resource within this country, and it is a question of where that gets allocated. We are spending more this year on defence than we have ever spent before; it looks as if it is going to be about 2.3% or £55.6 billion. It would be fantastic to be able to buy more ships and planes and employ a whole lot more people, but the capability and ability of our Armed Forces protect this country extremely well.