Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of the budget for the Ministry of Defence will be accounted for by expenditure on the intelligence and security services not previously included in that budget in each year of the Spending Review 2025.

The PM announced in February that an increase in NATO qualifying defence spending to 2.5% would be fully funded by a reduction to the ODA budget.

In line with practice among our allies, and recognising the increased contribution provided by our security and intelligence agencies on defence, we are including greater elements of the Single Intelligence Account spend in our NATO defence reporting. This will bring total NATO qualifying spending to 2.6% by 2027-28. This does not mean that the intelligence and security services will be added to the MOD budget.

NATO qualifying defence spending has always included elements beyond the MOD TDEL budget. This includes elements of spend such as armed forces pensions.