§ Mr. LawsTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his estimate is (1) of the level of UK defence spending as a share of UK gross domestic product for each year from 1973–74 to 2002–03; and if he will make a statement; [10493]
(2) UK defence spending as a share of gross domestic product for each of the last 25 years; and if he will make a statement. [10631]
§ Mr. Ingram[holding answer 29 October 2001]: Following the introduction of resource accounting and budgeting (RAB) in the Ministry of Defence on 1 April 2001, future financial planning, management and reporting is conducted on the new resource basis.
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UK defence spending as a share of the UK GDP from 1973–74 to 2000–01 Financial year Percentage GDP 1973–74 4.7 1974–75 4.7 1975–76 4.8 1976–77 4.7 1977–78 4.5 1978–79 4.4 1979–80 4.5 1980–81 4.8 1981–82 4.9 1982–83 5.2 1983–84 5.1 1984–85 5.3 1985–86 5.0 1986–87 4.7 1987–88 4.4 1988–89 4.0 1989–90 4.0 1990–91 3.9 1991–92 4.1 1992–93 3.7 1993–94 3.5 1994–95 3.3 1995–96 3.0
UK defence spending as a share of the UK GDP from 1973–74 to 2000–01 Financial year Percentage GDP 1996–97 2.9 1997–98 2.6 1998–99 2.6 1999–2000 2.5 2000–01 2.5 Using defence based figures announced in the 2000 spending review, defence budget expenditure is expected to represent the following share of GDP for 2001–02 and 2002–03.
Financial year Percentage GDP 2001–02 2.4 2002–03 2.3