Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, in which financial year (a) war pensions, (b) contributions to UN peacekeeping missions, (c) the Single Intelligence Account and (d) pensions for retired personnel were first included in his Department's reporting to NATO on defence expenditure.

As with other NATO allies, from time to time we update our approach to ensure we are categorising defence spending fully in accordance with NATO guidelines, seeking to capture all spending contributing to the defence of the United Kingdom.

Military pensions were included in the then NATO Government's return of defence spending for the first time in 2005-06.

War pensions, parts of the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund relating to peacekeeping, and pension payments to retired Ministry of Defence civil servants were first included in 2015-16.

As announced in the July 2015 Budget, elements of the Single Intelligence Account that relate to defence were first included in 2016-17.

NATO sets the criteria for defence spending, and like all NATO members we abide by those criteria.

NATO has confirmed that the UK continues to spend over 2 per cent of GDP on defence.