‘Boost UK defence or Putin will make you pay’

PM’s delay in increasing spending risks playing into Russia’s hands, warn three former secretaries of state

Political editor

RISHI SUNAK is facing calls from three former Tory defence secretaries to promise to increase defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP in his party’s election manifesto.

The demands, voiced via

came after no new money was allocated to the Ministry of Defence in Wednesday’s Budget, despite rising geopolitical tensions. It also followed a new report by MPs, which said there was no realistic plan to fund what they expect the Armed Forces to carry out in the next decade, with the financial black hole estimated to be £29 billion.

Sir Michael Fallon, Sir Gavin Williamson and Ben Wallace, who together headed up the MoD for almost a decade, argued that promising 3 per cent spending was essential for the Armed Forces.

Currently, the UK spends around 2.2 per cent of GDP a year on defence, above the 2 per cent target for members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation military alliance.

Mr Sunak has said the Government’s ambition is to raise that to 2.5 per cent, but no specific timeframe has been given on when or how that would be achieved.

Tory MPs have frequently pressed for higher defence spending after Russia invaded Ukraine and amid other signs that tensions between countries across the world are escalating.

Hitting 3 per cent by the end of the decade would mean around an extra £34 billion in that year, according to Prof Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director-general at the Royal United Services Institute. The estimate is based on official government forecasts for growth.

That would be a considerable investment with the public finances already under strain. Think tanks this week ‘If we don’t prepare properly and build back defences, it will be much more expensive later on’

warned that no political party was acknowledging how tough it will be to reduce debt, limit public spending rises and lower taxes after the election.

Sir Michael, defence secretary between 2014 and 2017, writes in

“Raising defence spending should be in every party manifesto this year. Every candidate should be challenged to support at least 2.5 per cent in each year of the next Parliament, and 3 per cent by the end of it. Stronger forces, a bigger navy, more air defence – these are not alternatives to spending on welfare, the NHS or overseas aid but the preconditions for it. Security comes before anything else.

“The lesson from the 1930s is surely that if we don’t prepare properly, it will be much more expensive to do so later on. If we don’t recapture the political will and build back the defences that enabled us to win the Cold War, our sons and daughters could face conscription for the first time in over sixty years.”

Sir Gavin, who held the role between 2017 and 2019, told this newspaper: “We need to spend what we need to defend ourselves. The reality of the threats we’re facing is that that figure is going to be at least 3 per cent of GDP and most likely more. We should put that promise in the election manifesto.

“We can’t continue to be in a place where we are thinking that we can hopefully get there. This has to be planned, this has to be well thought through. We’ve got to be in a situation where we start building the capabilities. We have to look at how in essence we rearm ourselves.”

Mr Wallace, defence secretary from 2019 to 2023, said: “For our Armed Forces to do what they’ve been asked to do alone, and for No 10 to put its money where its mouth is on the global stage, it needs to spend 3 per cent.”