§ Mr. Michieasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will publish in the Official Report the cost to Britain of the contribution made to all common North Atlantic Treaty Organisation projects and give a breakdown of these costs by function.
§ Mr. StanleyNATO has three standing budgets used for the common funding of projects and the Ministry of Defence contributes to two of them. For the year 1984–85, the United Kingdom's contribution was as follows:
- (a) NATO infrastructure budget. This covers the cost of constructing operational installations such as airfield facilities, naval base facilities and ammunition storage sites as well as procuring equipment such as communications, radar, and command, control and information systems. In 1984–85, the United Kingdom's total contribution to NATO infrastructure projects amounted to some £57 million. In the same year, NATO expenditure in the United Kingdom from the infrastructure budget, in respect of projects and equipment for which the United Kingdom undertook "host nation" responsibilities, amounted to £85 million.
- (b) The military budget. This covers primarily the operation and maintenance of the various NATO military headquarters, and agencies and NATO's communication systems. The United Kingdom's net contribution in 1984–85 was some £37 million.
- (c) The third common budget is the civil budget, for which overall responsibility is held by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
Commonly funded budgets such as these form only a small part of our contribution to the Alliance, more details of which can be found in chapters 2 and 3 of the "Statement on the Defence Estimates 1985" Cmnd. 9430–1.