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Strategic Defence Review

My hon. Friend rightly raises the scale and nature of the increasing cyber-attacks that this country faces. When I had the privilege of taking this job 10 months ago, I was taken aback to find that in the last year, defence across the piece had been subject to more than 90,000 cyber-attacks that could be linked directly to other states. That is why in this SDR, we pick up the recommendation to establish a new cyber-command, so that we can build on the pockets of excellence across defence and ensure that we can more effectively defend against and use offensive cyber to deter such attacks.

On funding, the spending review next week is an important moment for the Government, but the Prime Minister settled the funding for defence in his statement in February. The Chancellor has already put an extra £5 billion into the defence budget this year. We will hit 2.5% of GDP three years before anybody expected us to, and we have an ambition to hit 3% in the next Parliament. As the Prime Minister confirmed this morning, we will spend what is needed to deliver the vision of the strategic defence review over the next 10 years and beyond.