𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Mrs Badenoch went on: “He is the Prime Minister and the reason that he’s dithering is because he doesn’t know where the money is coming from.

“The military is waiting, the bond markets are watching. He has only three options: cutting spending, more borrowing or higher taxes.

“We know that the Chancellor wants to put up tax to pay for it. Will the Prime Minister rule out raising taxes?”

Sir Keir replied: “She asked the House to simply ignore the last 14 years. We may have failed the Armed Forces, hollowed them out, but please just forget all that and act as if it didn’t happen.

“Well you can’t forget all that given the damage they did to our armed services.

“She says forget all that. I remind the House when they left office 47 out of 49 major defence contracts were delayed or over budget.

“That is what we are fixing and you can’t just scrub away or forget… I know they want to forget the last 14 years in power, so do the British public, that’s why they are sitting over there.

“But we’ve increased defence spending, we are going to publish the defence investment plan and that will be done before the Nato summit coming up in just a few weeks’ time.”

Mrs Badenoch then said: “I asked him if he would rule out tax rises.
He did not rule out raising taxes, so tax rises are coming.”

The Government’s defence investment plan is due to be published ahead of the Nato summit in Turkey, which begins on July 7.

It was originally slated for publication last autumn but has been repeatedly delayed.

It comes as the Greater Manchester Mayor is making a bid to return to Parliament in the crunch Makerfield by-election.

Mr Burnham has admitted he would run in a leadership race to replace Sir Keir if he wins the ballot.