Tory voters back boost for defence budget
Conservatives would back spending on Armed Forces even if it reduced scope for tax cuts, poll finds
A MAJORITY of Conservative voters would prefer an increase in defence spending to tax cuts, according to polling.
A Savanta poll for The Sunday Telegraph found that 59 per cent of people who backed the Tories in 2019 say that the Government should increase levels of funding for defence, even if that means reducing its scope for tax cuts.
The findings come after a series of senior Tories called for the party to raise its overall spending on defence to 3 per cent of GDP, in the face of a growing threat from Russia. Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are gambling on tax cuts as their main election offering to win back disaffected voters who supported the party when it was led by Boris Johnson at the 2019 election.
At the centre of this month’s Budget was a 2p reduction in National Insurance, amid sustained pressure from senior Tories for more tax cuts. But the Chancellor’s statement contained no extra funds for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) despite growing concerns about hostility from Russia and Iran.
Only 27 per cent of 2019 Conservative supporters said the Government should cut taxes, even if that would result in less spending on defence.
Some 700 people who voted Tory at the last election were surveyed as part of a wider poll of more than 2,000 UK adults. Findings show voters also backed more health spending over tax cuts, by 65 per cent to 23 per cent. But more Conservative voters thought tax cuts should take priority over increases in the welfare budget than those who disagreed, with 49 per cent in favour of prioritising tax cuts and 37 per cent opting for higher welfare spending.
Chris Hopkins, Savanta’s political research director, said: “The Prime Minister is betting his and his party’s political future on an improving economy that will allow him to dole out tax cuts to a grateful public. But our latest research suggests this might be misguided, with nearly two thirds of Conservative voters wanting him to increase defence spending, even if it means he can’t cut taxes.”
Among all voters, additional spending on defence, health and welfare was favoured over tax cuts.
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 Nato military alliance. Mr Sunak has said the Government’s ambition is to raise that to 2.5 per cent but no specific time frame has been given on when or how that would be achieved.
Many Tory MPs have been pressing for higher levels of defence spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the deployment of British warships to the Red Sea to protect vessels from Iranian-sponsored attacks.
Earlier this month, Sir Michael Fallon, Sir Gavin Williamson and Ben Wallace, the former defence secretaries, said that promising 3 per cent spending was essential for the Armed Forces.
Their intervention came after the Commons defence committee warned, following a year-long inquiry, that Britain’s “increasingly overstretched” Armed Forces were not ready for a war with Russia. The committee’s report, published in February, found that the
‘Two thirds of Tory voters want Mr Sunak to increase defence spending, even if it means he can’t cut taxes’
Government “will never achieve warfighting or strategic readiness” without urgent reforms to reverse a recruitment crisis and dramatically boost Britain’s stockpile of weapons and ammunition.
The MPs said that the Armed Forces required more funding to “engage in operations whilst also developing warfighting readiness” or it would have to reduce the “operational burden” on the military. The committee discovered that £1.95 billion of funding awarded in the Budget last spring may now be used to plug shortfalls in defence rather than to replenish and boost stockpiles.
A government source said: “We have put £900 back in the pockets of 27 million workers because it’s the right thing to do to allow people to spend more of their own hard-earned cash. But we’re also spending a record amount on defence – £50 billion each year.”