HC Deb 06 February 1996 vol 271 cc124-5
6. Mr. Whittingdale

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proportion of expenditure is currently devoted to defence; and what is the current European average. [12032]

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Michael Portillo)

My Department expects to spend about 3 per cent. of gross domestic product in 1995–96 compared with the current NATO European average of 2.3 per cent. of GDP.

Mr. Whittingdale

Have not successive Labour party conferences voted to reduce the proportion of our GDP devoted to defence expenditure to the European average? The question was avoided at the most recent Labour party conference only because it was not put to the conference. Will my right hon. Friend say what effect such a policy would have on our ability to meet our NATO commitments and to defend ourselves?

Mr. Portillo

On the figures that I have given my hon. Friend, it would mean a reduction of more than £4.5 billion in Britain's defence budget. I can confirm that successive Labour party conferences have voted to reduce this country's spending to the European average. Indeed, I calculated the figure so as to give the most benefit to the Labour party, because I used the average of the NATO European countries. If a broader definition were drawn, the figures might have been even more divergent. The time has come for the Labour defence spokesmen to tell us whether the Opposition would increase or decrease defence spending, and whether they would follow the dictation of their party and satisfy their hon. Friends by reducing spending by £4.5 billion or more.

Dr. Reid

He is a beauty, is he not, Madam Speaker? That is all a scare story to cover up the Secretary of State's own incompetence and cuts. Does he remember that the same scare stories appeared in the 1992 manifesto, in which it was claimed that Labour would devastate our conventional forces by cuts of … 27 per cent."? Why is the right hon. Gentleman not boasting, because he has managed to beat that? He has made spending cuts of 27.3 per cent. on the defence budget, and of more than 30 per cent. on the conventional forces budget over the past decade. Why does he feel compelled to spread those scare stories again? Are they a cover-up for further cuts, or are the Conservatives genetically disposed to say one thing and do another?

Mr. Portillo

The hon. Gentleman has such contempt for his own party and its conference that he sums it up as a "scare story". I am not inventing things; I am talking about Labour party conferences year after year. What I want to know is whether the hon. Gentleman sticks with his party and his party conference. Would he increase defence spending or reduce it? The whole House will have noticed that he had nothing to say about what a Labour Government would actually do.

Mr. Brazier

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be inconsistent for the Government to implement further defence cuts while their Back Benchers were calling for orders for factories in their constituencies and for the deployment of troops to all sorts of destinations in the third world, but that that is what we hear again and again from Opposition Members?

Mr. Portillo

It is indeed. There are no more vociferous voices than those of Labour Members calling for orders for their constituencies—yet their party's policy is to reduce spending. In the debate on the Navy the other day, three Labour Members told us once again that they are active members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and that they want our nuclear deterrent to be abolished. What have the Front-Bench team to say about such things? Why do they not tell us the proper policy of the Labour party and, in the process, how they propose to deal with a Labour conference and Labour Back Benchers whose determination to cut this country's defences will not be silenced?

Mr. Skinner

Is not it true, once we have cut all the cackle, that the Labour party conference regularly passes resolutions proposing a cut in defence expenditure, and the Tory Government carry them out?

Mr. Portillo

If the hon. Gentleman is so uninfluential in his own party, I do not know why he does not give up and find something else to do.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman

Does my right hon. Friend recall that the Labour Government's major decision was to cancel the TSR2—the most magnificent aircraft at the time—which decimated jobs in Preston and lost a 10-year lead in electronics?

Mr. Portillo

Hon. Members on both sides of the House who represent constituencies that depend on defence orders should remember that the contrast between a Conservative Government and a Labour Government is that a Conservative Government announce orders and a Labour Government announce cancellations.