§ Mr. Soamesasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will publish details of the United Kingdom's contribution to the common defence of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation by comparison with United Kingdom North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies on spending allocated to capital expenditure and naval force tonnage.
§ Mr. HeseltineA comparison of figures for NATO allies (as well as for Japan) is given in the annual report to Congress by the United States Secretary for Defence on "Allied Contributions to the Common Defense". I am placing in the Library a copy of the 1985 report which gives figures mainly for calendar year 1983 as the most recent for which complete information is available. This shows that, in that year, the United Kingdom percentage spent on capital expenditure of about 45 per cent. was followed by 36 per cent. for the United States and less than 35 per cent. for European allies. In terms of naval force tonnage, the report to Congress ranks the United Kingdorn second with about 11 per cent. of the NATO total, well ahead of other European allies.