CHOGM, G7 and NATO Summits

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is completely right: the Turks are absolutely indispensable to solving this. They are doing their very best and I thank President Erdoğan for all the efforts that he is making. It does depend on the Russians agreeing to allow that grain to get out. The UK is offering demining facilities and insurance facilities for the vessels that will be needed to get the grain out. He is right about the urgency. We will increasingly have to look at alternative means of moving that grain from Ukraine if we cannot use the sea route—if we cannot use the Bosphorus.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister accept that, before there was a shooting war in Europe in the 1980s, it was right for this country to spend 5% of GDP on defence and, if he does, why does he think it is adequate for us to spend only half that percentage by the end of this decade?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend has campaigned on this issue for years. I think we will have to spend more. Logically, Mr Speaker, if you protract the commitments that we are making under AUKUS and under the future combat aircraft system, we will be increasing our spending very considerably. What we want to do is to make sure that other allies are doing the same. That is most important. That is why Jens Stoltenberg is, we hope, going to set a new target and allow the whole of the alliance to increase its funding.