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Defence Expenditure

6. Mr. Whittingdale: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proportion of expenditure is currently devoted to defence; and what is the current European average. [12032]

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Michael Portillo): My Department expects to spend about 3 per cent. of gross domestic product in 1995-96 compared with the current NATO European average of 2.3 per cent. of GDP.

Mr. Whittingdale: Have not successive Labour party conferences voted to reduce the proportion of our GDP devoted to defence expenditure to the European average? The question was avoided at the most recent Labour party conference only because it was not put to the conference. Will my right hon. Friend say what effect such a policy would have on our ability to meet our NATO commitments and to defend ourselves?

Mr. Portillo: On the figures that I have given my hon. Friend, it would mean a reduction of more than £4.5 billion in Britain's defence budget. I can confirm that successive Labour party conferences have voted to reduce this country's spending to the European average. Indeed, I calculated the figure so as to give the most benefit to the Labour party, because I used the average of the NATO European countries. If a broader definition were drawn, the figures might have been even more divergent. The time has come for the Labour defence spokesmen to tell us whether the Opposition would increase or decrease defence spending, and whether they would follow the dictation of their party and satisfy their hon. Friends by reducing spending by £4.5 billion or more.

Dr. Reid: He is a beauty, is he not, Madam Speaker? That is all a scare story to cover up the Secretary of State's own incompetence and cuts. Does he remember that the same scare stories appeared in the 1992 manifesto, in which it was claimed that Labour

"would devastate our conventional forces by cuts of . . . 27 per cent."?

Why is the right hon. Gentleman not boasting, because he has managed to beat that? He has made spending cuts of 27.3 per cent. on the defence budget, and of more than 30 per cent. on the conventional forces budget over the past decade. Why does he feel compelled to spread those scare stories again? Are they a cover-up for further cuts, or are the Conservatives genetically disposed to say one thing and do another?

Mr. Portillo: The hon. Gentleman has such contempt for his own party and its conference that he sums it up as a "scare story". I am not inventing things; I am talking about Labour party conferences year after year. What I want to know is whether the hon. Gentleman sticks with his party and his party conference. Would he increase defence spending or reduce it? The whole House will have noticed that he had nothing to say about what a Labour Government would actually do.

Mr. Brazier: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be inconsistent for the Government to implement further defence cuts while their Back Benchers were

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calling for orders for factories in their constituencies and for the deployment of troops to all sorts of destinations in the third world, but that that is what we hear again and again from Opposition Members?

Mr. Portillo: It is indeed. There are no more vociferous voices than those of Labour Members calling for orders for their constituencies--yet their party's policy is to reduce spending. In the debate on the Navy the other day, three Labour Members told us once again that they are active members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and that they want our nuclear deterrent to be abolished. What have the Front-Bench team to say about such things? Why do they not tell us the proper policy of the Labour party and, in the process, how they propose to deal with a Labour conference and Labour Back Benchers whose determination to cut this country's defences will not be silenced?

Mr. Skinner: Is not it true, once we have cut all the cackle, that the Labour party conference regularly passes resolutions proposing a cut in defence expenditure, and the Tory Government carry them out?

Mr. Portillo: If the hon. Gentleman is so uninfluential in his own party, I do not know why he does not give up and find something else to do.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Does my right hon. Friend recall that the Labour Government's major decision was to cancel the TSR2--the most magnificent aircraft at the time--which decimated jobs in Preston and lost a 10-year lead in electronics?

Mr. Portillo: Hon. Members on both sides of the House who represent constituencies that depend on defence orders should remember that the contrast between a Conservative Government and a Labour Government is that a Conservative Government announce orders and a Labour Government announce cancellations.

Official Service Residences

7. Mrs. Bridget Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much money has been spent by his Department on the official service residences in the past five years. [12033]

Mr. Soames: Over the past two years, £2.61 million and £1.51 million respectively has been spent on maintenance, building work, furniture and fittings of official service residences. I have today placed in the Library of the House my Department's detailed response to Sir Peter Cazalet's recommendations, which includes a reduced list of posts that carry an entitlement to an official service residence. The list shows that we have reduced such posts from 75 to 48, with further reductions to 44 as other posts lapse. I understand that Sir Peter is very satisfied by the way in which my Department has implemented his recommendations.

Mrs. Prentice: Given last year's scandal about expenditure on official service residences, including £33,000 for a set of curtains, does the Minister agree that

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such a gross waste of taxpayers' money must stop or does he agree with the Daily Express that it makes the Secretary of State appear like

"a squalid little estate agent"?

Mr. Soames: No, I do not agree with the Daily Express. The hon. Lady has plainly not done her homework on the subject. In May 1995, the Government commissioned Sir Peter Cazalet, to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude for a very thorough piece of work, to report on representational entertainment in the armed forces. A copy of that report has been placed in the Library. Since then, and in the light of the Cazalet report, a great deal of work has been done and I am pleased to say that we have been able to implement Sir Peter's recommendations in full. I hope that the Labour party accepts that, in future, such matters will be managed more effectively and efficiently, and that, above all, there is no doubt that there is an important requirement for the services, which are a golden asset to this country, to entertain where they have a significant representational role.

Mr. Key: Will my hon. Friend confirm that our senior officers--when they are not living cheek-by-jowl with service men while winning wars or keeping the peace--are often occupying their first permanent home after a career of moving their wives and families around the world? Do they not occupy houses that represent the dignity of the rank that they hold for a short period? Is not that very necessary in the armed forces? It would be entirely inappropriate for the Prime Minister to live in Lewisham, for example, just as it would be inappropriate for senior officers not to live in official service residences.

Mr. Soames: My hon. Friend, through his constituency interest, is well aware of the importance of the representational role of very senior officers in all three services. We can now account for these matters more effectively, and I hope that we will be able to go forward from here.

Mr. Spellar: Is not the sale of Haymes Garth another example of the breathtaking incompetence of the MOD? When added to the sale of the married quarters estate, does not that comprise the giveaway of the century? Will the Minister confirm that the proceeds of the sales will go to the Treasury, but that future rents will come from the Defence budget? Is not that a defence cut by the back door?

Mr. Soames: That was as fine a display of soundbites as I have heard this year, and it displayed the politics of mediocrity and envy for which the Labour party is famous. Let us establish the facts--Haymes Garth is being sold and, very sadly, the officer who was previously concerned has left the service. The Cazalet report, which was commissioned by the Government, has been thoroughly examined and all of its recommendations carried out. The hon. Gentleman's question seems extraordinary in those circumstances.