Like the Defence Secretary, Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP, and many others, I support higher spending on defence as a necessity for the security of the United Kingdom.
As Matthew Syed wrote in this weekend’s Times’, the world stands at a precipice. There is a ground war in Europe, China threatens Taiwan; and on Saturday, Iran, supported by its proxies, launched an unprecedented state-on-state drone and ballistic missile attack on military and civilian targets in Israel.
It is for this reason that the historian Niall Ferguson has warned that we are mere geopolitical inches from a Third World War. His point is that the Second World War can be seen as an accumulation of conflicts in different regions that happened to occur simultaneously — and that we are now on the verge of the same pattern.
We have seen the impact of war only 1,500 miles from Britain’s shores in the last few years. Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine drove up energy costs and the price of food. I am proud that our commitment to support Ukraine in standing up to this illegitimate incursion has been unwavering – and that we have been able to do that because of previous decisions which put our public finances in a position to do so. Our pledge of more than £12 billion in funding for Ukraine so far is not only helping the country to fight back but is providing crucial training opportunities for our troops at home to keep ahead of our adversaries – to continually learn, adapt and equip our Armed Forces to combat new threats.
Unfortunately, as the Defence Secretary said, we now live in a more dangerous world than we did previously which is why I support calls for higher spending on defence. I keep a close eye on these issues and when elected to Parliament, immediately joined the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme to get a closer insight into the day-to-day experience of our excellent armed forces and veterans.
