Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what role the UK will play in the implementation of the decision made on 14 November 2016 by EU foreign and defence ministers to seek alignment of national defence planning.

The Government's view is that NATO remains the cornerstone of European Defence. Rather than duplicating command structures, the priority for European Union (EU) member states should be to meet the two per cent commitment and to support better cooperation between NATO and the EU. In line with this, Conclusions at the 14 November 2016 EU Foreign Affairs Council (Defence), invited the High Representative/Vice President (HR/VP) to present proposals by spring 2017 for a Member State driven Coordinated Annual Review to aid better capability development and to improve synergies in defence spending. These Conclusions highlighted our key principles that Defence remains a Member State competence and the need for coherence with NATO. We will review the HR/VP's proposals in due course.