UK Defence Spending

Debate between John Spellar and Jack Lopresti

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think the previous speech, by the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh), reveals why we need to get back into this Chamber, where we could have made a few interventions on how the Government are letting down Yeovil, as they are letting down so much of the rest of the country.

I was going to start by asking what defence is for, and I was helpfully pre-empted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who talked about a study of history. A study of history would show that after the second world war NATO had to be founded, by a Labour Government and by the Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, in response to Soviet aggression and also to subversion of the countries of eastern Europe. We had to respond to that, and to subversion at home as well. In the same way, Ernest Bevin also played a prominent part in framing not just Labour policy but national policy before the second world war. Although, to his credit, George Lansbury, the Jeremy Corbyn of his time, had run a London borough, at that conference Ernest Bevin demolished the Lansbury argument for appeasement and pacifism and made it absolutely clear that authoritarianism—totalitarianism—had to be confronted, and confronted robustly.

Interestingly enough, that was emphasised very strongly only last month by President Biden in a speech at the National Memorial Day observance, which I commend to colleagues. He said very clearly that

“democracy must be defended at all costs, for democracy makes all this possible.”

He was talking about equal rights, respect and decency in the way countries treat their citizens and the way they treat other countries and their citizens. That is why we need collective defence. Rather than just talking about the League of Nations or the United Nations, important roles though the United Nations plays, we need collective defence.

Pat Moynihan, the famous American politician and diplomat, wrote a book arguing that the world is “A Dangerous Place”, the strapline of which was, “But a lot of people don’t understand that”. The world is a considerably more dangerous place now than it has been for a while. We have a revisionist China, a revanchist Russia, a subversive Iran, a terror-ridden Sahel—and those are just the main headlines. That is why we need defence, and that is why we need defence spending. A critical part of that for the United Kingdom and, indeed, the countries of western Europe is our transatlantic alliance with the United States, protecting democracy and freedom in Europe and keeping the Atlantic open as the great connecting sea lane between us. We ought to face up to that and support it.

That, of course, has consequences. Having decided that fundamental purpose, what is the structure that we put on top of it, and what role do we play in that? Are we going to play a leading and prominent role, or a very supportive but maybe less prominent role? We have to have—this is where a number of Members, including the right hon. Member for Islington North, are right—a national debate on that.

If we decide that Britain is going to play a significant and prominent role in the defence of freedom around the world, the resources have to follow—not short-changing the armed forces, not cutting the Army’s numbers, not shifting procurement requirements continuously to the right, greatly adding to the expense of each unit and gradually under-capitalising the armed forces; we need to make sure that they are properly funded. The Government talk the talk, often for political purposes—that was quite easy in the last general election against the right hon. Member for Islington North—but they must do more than that. They actually have to walk the walk and make the resources available.

Let us just have a look at the figures for spending on defence. Under the last Labour Government, in 2007-08, it increased by 6.8%. In 2008-09, which of course was a rather difficult year, as people remember, with the global financial crisis, it still increased by 0.5%. It recovered a bit in 2009-10, to plus 2.7%. Then in came the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition and, sadly, the figures were—I will just read the first years—minus 3.7% in 2010, minus 7.2% in 2011, and minus 9.7% in 2012. It went on, some years going down, some years going up slightly. That has always been the history, by the way; we remember “Options for Change” at the end of the cold war.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I greatly respect the right hon. Member for his expertise in and passion for defence matters, but he has conveniently left out the context in which we had to attack and deal with the financial mess we inherited in 2010. We cannot defend our country if we are broke. The right hon. Member talked about history and I enjoyed the beginning of his speech, but every Labour Government in history have left a mess to be cleared up.

[John Spellar]

Interestingly, in 2008, when the global financial crisis hit, the ratio of debt to national product was less than it was when we came to office in 1997, and in the meantime we built the schools, the hospitals and the infrastructure that the Conservative Government had lamentably failed to build.