§ 27. Mr. Ioan Evansasked the Secretary of State for Defence what is the latest estimate of the annual world military expenditure; and what is the latest annual military expenditure of the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. MulleyI cannot give an authoritative figure for total world military expenditure, since reliable data on a 535W comparable basis are lacking. The latest edition of "The Military Balance", published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, suggests a total of about 410 billion US dollars for 64 countries in 1977, and the work of other analysts tends to support this as a reasonable blobal estimated. United Kingdom defence expenditure in 1977–78 was £6,787 million or 11½7 billion US dollars at the exchange rates used by the IISS.
§ 40. Mr. George Rodgersasked the Secretary of State for Defence by how much in real terms spending on defence has increased or decreased since 1973.
§ Mr. MulleyThe Defence budget for the current financial year is 8.7 per cent. lower in real terms than that for 1973–74.