§ Mr. Brocklebank-Fowlerasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing his latest estimates of the percentage by which Soviet, Warsaw Pact, United States of America, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and United Kingdom expenditures on military defence have increased or decreased each year for the five years to the latest convenient date.
§ Mr. PymWarsaw Pact countries do not publish reliable information about their defence expenditure. It is estimated, however, that throughout the 1970s Soviet military expenditure has been increasing in real terms by an average of about 4 per cent. a year. Annual real change in the defence expenditure of the United Kingdom and the United States, according to national definitions, is as follows:
UK per cent. US per cent. 1974–75 … … -4.0 -0.9 1975–76 … … +4.6 -3.2 1976–77 … … -1.8 +1.9 1977–78 … … -2.3 +0.7 1978–79 … … -0.7 +3.9 NATO does not publish a figure for the Alliance as a whole.