Ex-spy chief: Spend on defence not tax cuts

Baroness Neville-jones said Government should alter its priorities because ‘threats are growing’

THE Government should scrap planned tax cuts and increase spending on defence to 2.5 per cent of GDP instead, a former security minister has said.

Baroness Neville-jones, who was a security and counter terrorism minister for Lord Cameron until 2011, told Times Radio yesterday, that defence spending should be increased to 2.5 per cent of GDP – up from the 2.27 per cent currently allocated.

Lady Neville-jones, who has also been chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the government body that oversees the security services, GCHQ and defence intelligence, said that “the threats are growing” as well as “the level of danger”.

She continued: “I think, yes, we do have to increase, up our level of defence and security expenditure.

“I think there are two sides to this. There is when conditions allow and there are also when conditions require.

“So I think it all depends on how high a priority you regard the security and defence of the nation as being. And I think it’s undeniable that it’s mounting that ladder. And we may have to … alter our priorities and spend more on defence.”

Lady Neville-jones suggested that the public would understand and support an increase in defence spending, even if it came at the expense of longawaited tax cuts.

The Tory peer added that people “aren’t foolish” and that “to be serious about defence, they [the Government] do actually have to explain why it is that we need to spend more money on armaments, why we need to reopen some of our defence supply lines and start manufacturing”.

She continued: “I think that we are not equipped to do so at the moment to leap from doing nothing, or not doing nothing but not adequately explaining, to suddenly saying, well, we’ve got to up the expenditure on defence.

“I think, were that to be given, I think British people are sensible and I think they would support extra expenditure even at the price of not having tax cuts.”

Her comments come amid increasing pressure on the Government to increase defence spending after no extra money was dedicated to it in the Chancellor’s budget last month.

James Heappey, then Armed Forces minister, resigned amid the row and said “both main parties should strongly consider a further increase in defence spending in the next parliament”.

Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, said a week after Jeremy Hunt delivered the budget that the Government’s defence spending should rise to “about 3 per cent”.

Mr Shapps told The Telegraph last month: “I coined the phrase ‘moving from post-war to pre-war’. We therefore have to be much more prepared.

“Defence is the best way to protect ourselves against a military conflict, you have to show your adversaries, so I am clearly in favour.”

Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, also called for an increase in defence spend funded by a 50 per cent cut to foreign aid in a piece for the Mail on Sunday last weekend.

Mr Jenrick said that between war in Ukraine, huge military spending by China and Houthi attacks on British ships, the country faces “the greatest [security threats] in a generation”.

Tory MP Jeremy Quin, chairman of the defence committee, has repeatedly called for an uplift in defence spending.

Speaking to Times Radio alongside Baroness Neville-jones, he said that a boost to at least 2.5 per cent should happen “the sooner the better”.

He added: “My personal view is certainly very worried about the increase in risk and worries about the readiness of our Armed Forces.”