NATO Brussels Summit 2018

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, following the Welsh summit, when all the nations in NATO gave a firm promise to increase spending to 2%, progress has been abysmally slow in very many cases—and in some cases it has gone backwards. Now we have renewed promises. How confident are the Government that those who met in Brussels last week will this time deliver on their promises? While it has always been thought rather bad form to name and shame nations that do not comply with their promises, would it not be a good idea if the Government could find a way of demonstrating each year the progress that all members of NATO are making to get towards the level to which they are all committed?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As the Statement made clear, there was and is a sense of urgency and renewed commitment to move towards spending 2% of GDP on defence by 2024. It is only fair to say that our European allies and Canada, for instance, added $41 billion to their defence spending in 2017 alone. That is a commitment and we are confident that countries have a sense of urgency. We will continue to meet our commitment and will encourage our allies to do the same.