Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department's assessment of what constitutes NATO qualifying defence expenditure includes investment in (a) energy infrastructure and (b) energy security projects such as Great British Energy.

Spend on energy infrastructure and energy security projects does not constitute NATO qualifying core defence spend.

The Government has long argued that investment in things like energy security is vital to national security and this will be considered for inclusion under NATO's new 1.5% definition on resilience.