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NATO: Member State Spending

My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lord for having instigated this debate. I congratulate him on that and would like to follow on from some of the points that he has helpfully made. It is timely that we should have this debate so

soon after the change in the Administration in the United States. Quite frankly, there has not been too much to cheer President Trump for over the past few weeks. However, we must begin by expressing a sense of relief that during the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington, he managed to bring himself to say that he has 100% support for NATO. That is most welcome and a relief. We must especially commend him for again raising the way in which some NATO states, especially in the European sector, remain freeloaders in supporting NATO.

As the noble Lord said, it was only two years ago, in 2014, that all the NATO countries solemnly got together at the Welsh summit and committed themselves to spending 2% of GDP on defence. Following on from what the noble Lord said about the UK spending 2%, according to the statistics in the most helpful Library briefing pack, current UK spending on defence is 2.1%. When the Minister replies, will he say whether the Government believe that this is the correct figure? If it is, surely it kills all the arguments of those who say that in justifying 2% we are loading various other costs on to the defence budget. The costs to which the noble Lord referred—pensions is one—are easily absorbed in the excess over 2% which the UK is now spending.

Where have we got to two years after the Welsh summit? I find it quite extraordinary that four European states are still spending less than 1% of GDP on defence. For many years I have been a delegate to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I was very recently vice-president and I am currently chairman of one of the committees and a member of the standing committee and the bureau. For years it has been thought rather bad form and bad manners to draw attention to those states that do not shape up. The time has come to put the record straight. Let us put it on the record now. According to the statistics in the Library’s briefing, Slovenia is still spending 0.94%, Spain 0.91%, Belgium, if you please, 0.85%, and Luxembourg, one of the richest countries in Europe, 0.44%—less than half of 1%.

The noble Lord referred to the background we face, with Russia rattling its sabre on NATO’s eastern frontier. Following the outrageous transgressions of Russia in recent years in Georgia, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea and Ukraine and, as the noble Lord said specifically, in placing highly offensive weapons in the Kaliningrad part of Russia next to the Baltic states, it is worth pointing out that NATO is responding to the situation, which reflects the urgency that NATO clearly feels. We are in the process of deploying battalion-sized battle groups to three Baltic states and Poland—the United States leading the one to Poland, Canada to Latvia, Germany to Lithuania, and the United Kingdom to Estonia. The battle groups will be in place in order to ensure that any offensive action by the Russians in any of those states in taking on the battle groups will be a clear transgression of Article 5 of the NATO treaty.

I have already referred to the member states who spend less than 1% of GDP on defence, but, there are 14 who are still spending less than 1.5%. The figures on page 5 of the Library briefing are extraordinarily helpful. They include rich countries which should not be in this position. I have already referred to Belgium

and Luxembourg in the under 1% group, but those in the under 1.5% group include rich countries such as Denmark, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

One might ask what they are doing to put defence spending closer to their solemn commitments. This makes dismal reading. Looking again at the statistics the Library has produced, in the last year Belgium has decreased its spending by 5.3%, Croatia by 8.8% and Poland, surprisingly, by 7.8%. It is a dismal picture—it is a disgrace, quite frankly—given the antics of Mr Putin as we see them. I hope the Government will tell us of the positive and timely steps they are taking to name and shame, as I have tried to do tonight in the House, and that they will use every effort to persuade these countries in the strongest terms to come to the figure they all solemnly agreed two years ago at the Welsh summit.

7.26 pm