§ Mr. LawsTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his estimate is of the additional planned spending which would be needed to stabilise the share of UK defence spending in relation to UK gross domestic product at the 2001 level until 2005; and if he will make a statement. [18815]
§ Mr. IngramUsing the resource based figures announced in the 2000 Spending Review, defence budget expenditure is expected to represent the following share of GDP for 2001–02 to 2003–04:
Financial year Percentage GDP 2001–02 2.4 2002–03 2.3 2003–04 2.3 I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 30 October 2001, Official Report, columns 565–66W, which reported the figures for 2001–02 and 2002–03.
Those figures imply that a further 0.1 per cent. of GDP would be required in 2002–03 and 2003–04 to maintain UK defence spending at a constant percentage of UK GDP, though the figure for 2001–02 includes estimated conflict prevention funding (which cannot be forecast for subsequent years). The defence budget will, however, increase in real terms over each of these years. The defence budget for 2004–05 will be agreed during Spending Review 2002.
§ Mr. LawsTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what his estimate is of total United Kingdom defence spending over the last 25 years; what value for money assessment of defence expenditure he has conducted; and if he will make a statement; [18818]
(2) what (a) underspends and (b) overspends have been recorded against his Department's total budget in each of the years 1996–97 to 2000–01; and if he will make a statement. [18838]
§ Mr. IngramDefence spending for the last 25 completed financial years was as follows:
354W
£ million 1976–77 6,158 1977–78 6,788 1978–79 7,596 1979–80 9,408 1980–81 11,451 1981–82 12,806 1982–83 14,630 1983–84 15,732 1984–85 17,450 1985–86 18,263 1986–87 18,410 1987–88 18,922 1988–89 19,221 1989–90 20,777 1990–91 22,207 1991–92 24,438 1992–93 22,910 1993–94 22,757 1994–95 22,562 1995–96 21,517 1996–97 22,345
£ million 1997–98 21,610 1998–99 22,475 1999–2000 22,549 2000–01 23,538 Note:
These figures are not adjusted for inflation
The following underspends/overspends were recorded during the period 1996–97 to 2000–01:
Year £ million 1996–97 1246 1997–98 2225 1998–99 274 1999–2000 2318 2000–01 272 1 Overspend 2 Underspend More detailed breakdowns are available in the Department Appropriation Accounts, copies of which are available in the Library of the House.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is committed to the pursuit of efficiency and value for money. The MOD's Public Service Agreement was published in December 1998, and set key targets for the period 1999–2000 to 2001–02, reflecting the outcome of the Strategic Defence Review. The PSA set many challenging value for money targets, and the Department has made good progress against these. MOD's Departmental Performance Report (DPR) was recently published and set out in detail progress against each target. A copy of the DPR has been placed in the Library of the House.