Defence Minister Luke Pollard has told GB News that he only saw a breakdown of how the Defence Investment Plan would be funded in recent days.
Asked when he first saw the Treasury breakdown, he said: “It was in the past few days, because I only saw the formal draft, as many of the public did when it was published by the Treasury alongside the Defence Investment Plan. But I know that the Defence Secretary has been working very closely with the Chancellor and the Prime Minister to secure the uplift in the funding that we now have.
“But my job is to make sure that the money we get for defence is spent wisely, and in particular, how do we make sure more of that budget is spent with British companies creating jobs here at home?”
He denied that there is a near £5 billion black hole in the plan: “No. So we’ve got a £298 billion defence plan for the next four years, a £15 billion increase. Two-thirds of that increase has been funded by asking other departments to give up 1p in the pound of their capital budgets and move that money to defence.
“£4.7 billion of that increased defence budget will be set out in the autumn Budget, which, as you will know, is fairly common government practice, something done by previous governments that announced the policy intent and the detail of how that is afforded at the next Budget or the next fiscal event, as they, we would say in Treasury speak, which is the Budget that will be in the autumn this year.”
Asked if the UK was ready for an attack, Pollard said: “I can say hand on heart that if we were attacked today, the UK armed forces would respond to that, but would we be more ready tomorrow and the day after that? Absolutely.
“That’s why we’re on the path to move from expeditionary warfare, so the era of Iraq and Afghanistan, to the era of warfighting readiness. Now that was a key recommendation in the Strategic Defence Review that was published roughly a year ago, that set out that we need to change the way that our armed forces are structured, the way they operate, train and are equipped to reposition ourselves to be able to deter in particular, Russian aggression, and if necessary to fight it.
“That’s why when the Prime Minister set out that we need to be ready to respond to a potential Russian attack by 2030 we’re doing that by increasing that readiness. Now, in practical terms, that means buying more missiles, but we inherited a situation where we came into office at 2.3% of GDP. Now we, as a country, have not spent 2.7% of GDP once in the last 14 years on the Conservatives, but not once in the last 30 years.
“That’s why we’re increasing it, but for me, my job is to make sure that increased defence budget is spent wisely, and we’re buying the new kit and equipment that we need now. To do that, we’ve got to retire some of those older platforms, those older capabilities that have given good service to our armed forces, but are no longer relevant in the 21st century.”