Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by Peter Luff (Conservative). It was answered on Monday, 23 February 2015 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Question: Does the Secretary of State agree that all the major parties in the coming election should commit to a real-terms increase in the defence budget and to the 2% NATO target, because only that way can we hope to keep our nation safe in an increasingly hostile and menacing world?

Answer: Since the 2010 SDSR, our planning assumption has been that real growth in the defence budget, with 1% growth on equipment, is required to deliver the highly capable and adaptable armed forces that we set out in Future Force 2020. The scale of our current operations in Kabul, the middle east and Sierra Leone underline the value of the flexibility that we encouraged in that review. So far as the future is concerned, we are spending £34 billion this year; we will be spending £34 billion next year. It is time we heard from Labour whether it will match that spending or whether it plans to cut it.

Secondary information