Badenoch to set out plans to raise extra £10bn a year for defence
Andy Burnham should take up plans for sweeping welfare cuts, and scrap the Chagos Islands deal, to raise £10 billion a year for defence, Kemi Badenoch will say in an intervention on military spending.
The Conservative leader will set out how she would hike defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 in a speech on Thursday, in an attempt to draw a distinction with the Prime Minister, who has so far only given assurances that the Government will meet its defence commitments.
She grilled Mr Burnham in the Commons at Prime Minister’s Questions about how he would meet the target, as well as the UK’s long-term commitment to Nato to raise defence spending to 5% by 2035.
The Prime Minister said details of when the UK would meet its defence commitments would be left to Chancellor John Healey, likely at next year’s spending review.
In a sign he is confident of meeting the target, Mr Burnham insisted there was “no problem” with Labour’s commitment to defence.
But the Tories have signalled Labour must provide more details, as Mrs Badenoch is expected to set out her plans to create room within the public finances to boost defence spending.
Some £4 billion could be saved by reforming housing benefit, and a further £3.1 billion through reimposing the two-child benefit cap, the Tories believe.
Mrs Badenoch’s overhaul would also save £1 billion by ending VAT exemptions for Motability cars, and scrap the Chagos deal to save £200 million a year, among other steps.
The Tories believe that these measures would fund an annual £10 billion increase in the defence budget, and would meet the 3% by 2030 target, something Mr Healey said was necessary to keep Britain safe in his resignation letter as defence secretary to Sir Keir Starmer.
Ahead of her speech on Thursday, opposition leader Mrs Badenoch said: “The first duty of every government is defence and the Conservatives will always put our defence first.
“That’s why we are setting out our plans to reach 3% on defence spending by the end of this Parliament through further cuts to welfare and restoring the two-child benefit cap.
“John Healey resigned from Keir Starmer’s Government saying Labour were not keeping our country safe. Now he is the Chancellor he should adopt our plans and make sure our armed forces have the funding they need.”
Labour said the Tory plan uses money the party has already allocated for other proposals.
A spokesperson said: “Dodgy Tory economics won’t fund Britain’s defences.
“The British people won’t forget Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives hollowed out our armed forces and blew holes in the UK’s proud international reputation.
“This proposal uses the same money they’ve already spent on other things and appears to break the Tories’ so-called golden economic rule.
“This is just days after Kemi Badenoch promoted a key architect of the Liz Truss mini-budget as her shadow chancellor. It’s the same old Tories – they haven’t listened and they haven’t learned.”
The Liberal Democrats said the Tories were at fault for a defence spending “black hole” and that they were now proposing “piling the cost” onto vulnerable children.
Lib Dem defence spokesperson James MacCleary MP said: “The Conservative Party spent nearly a decade hollowing out our military – leaving our Army and Navy at their smallest since the Napoleonic and Civil Wars – while undermining our security through their botched Brexit deal.”
He pointed to lost tax revenues due to Brexit which the party says could have been worth up to £90 billion last year.
“To now try to fill the black hole they created by piling the cost onto the poorest and most vulnerable children is despicable. It’s always those with the least that are left to pay the highest price with the Conservatives.”
The Lib Dems said their own plan for defence bonds would raise £20 billion over two years.
Published: by Radio NewsHub