Two per cent. for defence is simply not enough; 3% is far nearer the target. It was 5% in my day, and all the kit is much more expensive, so 3% is the minimum that we need to spend. Will my right hon. Friend tell the House when we will look at this again? I believe there will be another review of the review. When will that take place, and when will we have the Government’s final decision on what they are going to spend on our armed forces?
John Glen
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The integrated review is under review at this time. That needs to be done urgently—I think in the next three or four months—to enable us to come to an assessment of what that means for our defence spending. But I will say that, as I know he will know, we did front-load a significant increase in the defence budget, of £24 billion, over this spending period. I would work on the basis that, while this must be our top priority, it must be based on an updated assessment of the need, in which there have been a lot of changes in recent times.