OPINION
There is strong pressure for the UK to invest more in the armed forces (Image: AP)
For all the focus on President Trump and what he has said in recent days, he is surely right that the UK and other NATO nations need to spend more on defence.
With the US increasingly focused on China, the rest of NATO needs to do more of the heavy lifting to confront the Russian threat closer to home. This will involve significantly higher defence spending, but as Conservatives we are clear that defence must be our top priority and we accept the reality of our position.
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As such, today I’m confirming that we are prepared to support the government in taking tough decisions, for example by cutting other budgets, including welfare and - in the short term at least - foreign aid, to boost spending on our military to the levels required.
We’ve already shown our commitment to higher defence spending by standing at the election last July with a funded plan to get to 2.5% of GDP on defence by 2030, paid for by reducing the civil service to its pre-pandemic size. This plan was ready to go when Labour came to power.
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Regrettably, Labour chose to scrap our plan, putting procurement on hold and wasting months when they should have been ordering the munitions we need to replace stocks gifted to Ukraine.
I am proud of the support we provided to Ukraine, helping them avoid a total capitulation early on that would have been a disaster for them and that would have ultimately threatened our shores. But in strongly backing our extraordinary assistance to Ukraine, the British public expect us to replenish our own weapons’ stocks in parallel.
Our plan provided an additional ￡10billion for munitions – money Labour will still have to find and spend, but placing the orders months later than necessary.
Nevertheless, if our plan for 2.5% was right last July, it’s now clear that we need to go further and faster.
Exactly how much further and faster than 2.5% will depend on a detailed assessment of the threat. So I’m not going to pluck an arbitrary GDP figure out of thin air, but I’m 100% clear that recent events mean we need to spend even more than the 2.5% we had planned.
In finding the money to back our armed forces, we will need to be prudent and avoid simply borrowing the cash, as former Labour Treasury Minister Ed Balls has advocated – latest figures show Rachel Reeves is already borrowing far too much, risking higher mortgage rates and hitting economic confidence.
Instead, we need to make difficult decisions on other areas of spending if we are to give the brilliant men and women of our armed forces the tools to do the job. I can confirm that the Conservatives will be prioritising savings from the aid budget and welfare to boost defence spending, whilst scrapping Labour’s multi-billion pound Chagos plan.
Of course, there will be those who agree that we need to spend more on defence but would be against cutting the aid budget or welfare spending. The problem is, without considering these areas of spending, and if the irresponsible idea of sticking the extra cash on the nation’s heavily burdened credit card is rightly ruled out, that inevitably suggests the answer is even higher taxes.
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But Rachel Reeves has already clobbered taxpayers from all angles. Indeed, Rachel Reeves’ huge increase in National Insurance is even hitting defence, with the sector responsible for manufacturing the shells and kit we need facing an additional tax bill exceeding half a billion pounds this Parliament.
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Whereas, following Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine – when the cost of living surged on the back of much higher energy prices – we had to work really hard to get inflation back to 2% by the election last July, with a much more disciplined approach on public sector pay than Labour have displayed, offering huge awards with no strings attached.
But of course, by far the most serious impact of Putin’s invasion has been the terrible toll of death and destruction he has wrought on the people of Ukraine. We must continue to do all we can to support Ukraine, whilst strengthening our own armed forces.
The time has come to be open about how much that will cost – and where the money will come from.