NATO Spending Target

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Defence – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 30 January 2017.

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Photo of Julian Lewis Julian Lewis Chair, Defence Committee, Chair, Defence Committee 12:00, 30 January 2017

The Government are certainly not breaking any NATO rules in calculating the 2%, but may I remind Ministers and hon. Members that 2% is a minimum? It is not a target, and we used to spend much more than 2% in the cold war years, as recently as the 1980s. Does the Secretary of State agree that even if all our NATO European allies were to meet the 2% pledge as a minimum, we would still be unable to deter an aggressive Russia without the wholehearted involvement of the United States, which is why the Prime Minister’s visit to President Trump was so absolutely important?