Ministers forced to insists Forces ARE 'top priority’amid fear top general could resign

MINISTERS came under growing pressure yesterday to boost defence spending in next month’s Budget after military figures waded into the row over the state of the Armed Forces.

Friends of General Sir Patrick Sanders, the Chief of the General Staff, said he was ‘deeply concerned’ about the Army’s operational capability after decades of cuts and warned he was ready to quit in protest.

And General Sir Richard Barrons, a former head of the UK’s Joint Forces Command, called on Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to sanction funding to replace weapons and tanks given to Ukraine and stop ‘deliberately keeping defence broken’.

Last week three former defence secretaries – Sir Michael Fallon, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Michael Portillo – backed a spending boost in next month’s Spring Budget in interviews with the Daily Mail. And Mr Hunt is weighing up whether to give Defence Secretary Ben Wallace more money, with talks between the pair continuing. Mr Wallace has admitted he faces an ‘uphill battle’ to secure more funding, with the Treasury resisting his demands for between £8billion and £11billion extra.

Yesterday Penny Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons and also a former defence secretary, hinted a cash boost could be on the way.

She told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: ‘I am confident that we will keep defence spending strong and it will be a priority of this Government… we have made commitments that we will increase defence spending.’

In the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor said: ‘The Prime Minister and I both recognise the need to increase defence spending. But before we make that commitment it is necessary to revise and update the Integrated Review, written as it was before the Ukraine invasion.’

The review sets out the defence, foreign policy and security strategy. It is due to be published next month, with the Budget on March 15.

Sir Patrick, 56, recently warned that the war in Ukraine has left the Army weaker and that ‘three decades of disinvestment’ had led to troops with outdated equipment.

One ex-colleague told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Paddy is not the sort of person to start thumping a table and make threats about quitting, but he will have drawn a line in the sand and said to himself, “This far and no further”, and Ben Wallace knows that.

‘It is hard to remember when the Army has been in a worse state.’

Last week, The Mail on Sunday revealed that there were fears among Nato chiefs that Britain’s overstretched forces were not fit to be on the front line against Russia.

And a leading military think-tank – the International Institute for Strategic Studies – warned that Britain risks falling behind France as Nato’s foremost military power in Europe.

Sir Richard pointed to ‘political incontinence’ in Downing Street, telling the Sunday Express that decision-makers were ‘deliberately keeping defence broken at the most critical time for a generation’.

Sir Michael earlier told the Daily Mail: ‘I strongly support more money for defence.’ At the peak of the Cold War in 1984, Britain spent 5.5 per cent of GDP on the military – £57billion on a GDP of £1.037trillion.

It fell to 2.7 per cent in 1997 and, by 2004, had plunged to 2.2 per cent on £1.8trillion GDP – meaning the Armed Forces got just under £39.5billion. It twice hit 2.1 per cent under the Conservative and Lib Dem coalition between 2010 and 2015 – just making the 2 per cent Nato benchmark.

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