Defence secretary calls for greater share of UK spending on military

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The UK government must funnel a greater share of public spending into the country’s military and it “couldn’t be needed quicker”, the defence secretary said on Monday.

Ben Wallace told MPs chancellor Jeremy Hunt had accepted that “defence will require a greater share of public spending . . . if it is to defend these shores, and indeed our people”.

His remarks came ahead of an update to the government’s revised strategy to reshape the UK armed forces in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The government was expected to publish it’s so-called defence command paper this month but the timing has slipped to July, according to officials.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Wallace said the British military had been “neglected all the way back to Afghanistan and Iraq” and that he had spent previous increases to the defence budget “catching up and modernising the armed forces”.

In the Budget in March, Hunt said Britain had been the first large European country to commit to spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence, meeting Nato’s minimum target. He promised the government would “raise that to 2.5 per cent as soon as fiscal and economic circumstances allow”.

Wallace said the “support” of both Hunt and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for increasing defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP “is a path in the right direction, and of course it couldn’t be needed quicker”.

The defence secretary said it was “regretful” that “only seven to eight” nations among the 31 Nato members were meeting the minimum 2 per cent target. It would be “important” to get member states to recommit to it at the alliance’s upcoming summit in Vilnius, he added.

Earlier in the day the head of the British army argued for greater funding for land forces, saying it was “wrong” to suggest the UK “can simply hide behind the armies of other Nato nations”.

General Sir Patrick Sanders, chief of the general staff, hit out at the idea that Britain’s “geography allows us to minimise investment on land” after recent defence investment cycles had prioritised the RAF and Royal Navy.

Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute’s annual land warfare conference in London, Sanders warned many of the army’s combat platforms were “outdated and not fit for purpose”.

He likened some of the army’s armoured personnel carriers, armoured fighting vehicles and main battle tanks to “rotary dial telephones in an iPhone age”.

He added: “We need credible armed forces that are balanced across all of the domains . . . Mass is still indispensable.”