Defence: Expenditure

Mr. Gerald Howarth

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much (a) expenditure and (b) near cash expenditure there was on defence (i) including and (ii) excluding military operations in each year since 1997. (305040)

The MOD’s total expenditure (outturn) in near cash and non cash, including and excluding the cost of all military operations charged to RfR 2, for each year since 2001-02 is provided as follows.

*£000*
	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09
Total MOD outturn
Near cash	24,511,054	26,930,775	27,795,583	28,876,022	29,635,000	31,245,735	31,820,049	35,568,736
Non cash	13,483,254	21,180,812	12,734,259	10,233,569	11,664,951	9,943,505	11,723,214	10,080,378
Total	37,994,308	48,111,587	40,529,842	39,109,591	41,299,951	41,189,240	43,543,263	45,649,114

Less military operations
Near cash	550,597	1,381,971	1,349,132	1,039,093	1,201,921	1,731,368	2,744,977	3,696,650
Non cash	35,488	54,148	144,298	72,930	65,170	65,250	286,938	394,554
Total	586,085	1,436,119	1,493,430	1,112,023	1,267,091	1,796,618	3,031,915	4,091,204

Net MOD outturn
Near cash	23,960,457	25,548,804	26,446,451	27,836,929	28,433,079	29,514,367	29,075,072	31,872.086
Non cash	13,447,766	21,126,664	12,589,961	10,160,639	11,599,781	9,878,255	11,436,276	9,685,824
Total	37,408,223	46,675,468	39,036,412	37,997,568	40,032,860	39,392,622	40,511,348	41,557,910

The Department did not produce full accounts until the introduction of Resource Accounting and Budgeting for the financial year 2001-02. Prior to this, the Department’s outturn was reported in the end of year “Appropriations Accounts and Estimates Reports”, copies of which can be found in the Library of the House. Appropriations Accounts do not, however, separately identify the cost of operations or the costs of the security and intelligence services. This information is not held centrally.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage of gross domestic product was spent on defence (a) including and (b) excluding the cost of military operations in each year since 2007-08. (305105)

The requested information is provided in the following table.

	2007-08	2008-09
National GDP¹ (£000)	1,417,797,000	1,435,006,000
Total MOD outturn (£000)	43,543,263	45,649,114
Percentage of GDP	3.07	3.18
Net MOD outturn less military operations (£000)	40,511,348	41,557,910
Percentage of GDP	2.86	2.90
¹ GDP figures based on those published by HM Treasury.

The Outturn figures for 2009-10 will be published in the annual report in July 2010.

Volume 502: debated on Monday 14 December 2009