Former defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace has branded Labour’s claims that it has boosted military spending “a con” after concerns were raised over how the figures are being calculated.
The row has exploded following Rachel Reeves’s spending review on Wednesday, where she boasted that defence spending would be 2.6 per cent of GDP. But this included wrapping in security and intelligence spending for the first time.
Earlier this year, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer controversially slashed international aid to boost defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027, two years ahead of schedule. At the time, he also promised it would rise to 3 per cent by 2034.
However, since then, the 3 per cent pledge has been qualified to “if economic circumstances allow”, while the new calculation on defence spending has left questions over whether the boost is as big as first claimed.
According to the spending review, in 2027/28, defence is £71bn and the security and intelligence is £5.1bn, making a combined total of 76.1bn, which was cited as “2.6 per cent of GDP”.
However, the Tories noted that security and intelligence elements equated to 0.186 per cent of that total GDP number as opposed to 0.1 per cent, suggesting defence spending would be below 2.5 per cent.
Added to that, there was nothing in the review about spending for the Chagos deal, which could cost as much as £30bn over 99 years, according to some estimates.
Sir Ben, respected former Tory defence secretary who criticised his own government for not investing in the military enough, posted: “As Rachel Reeves tries to con us all with her Defence GDP definition it is worth reading NATO’s guidelines on what can count.
“If you claim other forces/police or intelligence you can only do so if, ‘In such cases, expenditure is included only in proportion to the forces that are trained in military tactics, are equipped as a military force, can operate under direct military authority in deployed operations.’”
He added: “I’d like to be in the room when someone tells the workforce of MI6, GCHQ and MI5 they are about to be conscripted and go through military training.”
Ms Reeves was challenged on LBC over whether her new calculations were “trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes”.
She responded: “No. Our commitment is to get to 2.5 per cent. We have not included all intelligence spending. We have [included some] under the Nato definition because obviously intelligence is an important part of our defence.”
However, it was pointed out that according to its guidelines, Nato defines defence spending as “expenditure as payments made by a national government specifically to meet the needs of its armed forces, those of allies or of the alliance”.
The explanation was not accepted by political opponents.
Tory shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said on X (Twitter): “Not 2.6% on Defence, it’s 2.5% plus 0.1% for Intelligence agencies which are now included in ‘Defence’. We knew when adding Intelligence to MoD budget was announced in Feb that they’d try & make ‘2.6’ the standard. No change from previously; no extra money; smoke & mirrors.”
