Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

We signed the European Union security and defence partnership in May. We committed ourselves to negotiating with the European Union for access to the SAFE funding arrangements. From the start, we recognised that there would need to be a financial contribution from the UK, but we also said from the start that SAFE needed to be good value for money for British taxpayers and British industry. It did not meet those tests. We were unable to reach a deal with the European Union, but we will continue to back Great British defence industrial firms as they sell into Europe, and we will strike bilateral deals that allow us to do a great deal more beyond the SAFE programme in the years to come.

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

2. What discussions he has had with the Chancellor of Exchequer on meeting the NATO target of 5% of GDP on defence expenditure.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)]

This summer, the UK joined all other 31 NATO nations in agreeing the new NATO benchmark of 5% spending on national security by 2035. That followed this Government’s announcement of the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war.

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer, but it is curious to see what is and is not in the Red Book from the Budget we just had. Page 88 shows in intricate detail just how big the welfare budget will get as a result of the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap, but there is no such analysis anywhere in the Red Book of defence spending. Will he set out clearly at the Dispatch Box when the UK will hit the domestic 3% target, and when we will ultimately get to that 5% target? In which financial year will that be?

[John Healey]

We have committed to the target of 5% by 2035, like all 31 other allies. This Government have already put in an extra £5 billion in the first year and will hit 2.6% by 2027—three years earlier than anyone expected. We have an ambition for 3% in the next Parliament. The rising profile of defence investment over the next decade puts an end to 14 years of the British armed forces being hollowed out and underfunded under Tory Governments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for her interest in this issue. We are moving towards an always-on munitions strategy, and we have allocated £1.5 billion to create six new energetics munitions factories. The first will start construction next year. I am happy to meet her to further discuss the potential options in Scotland.

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

T5. Given that Germany has lifted its partial arms embargo on Israel, why do the UK Government persist with restrictions on defence export licences to our ally?