𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

A minister has denied Labour is misleading the public about defence spending by including intelligence spending in the military budget. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds hit back at claims the Government is artificially inflating the defence budget to make it appear Britain is on course for NATO’s new spending target.

Former Conservative defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace has written to the UK Statistics Authority to express concerns intelligence spending will be included towards the 3.5% commitment in the near future. He urged the watchdog to assess whether Labour could legitimately claim to be meeting its pledge to NATO, when the alliance does not include spending on intelligence within its goal for member states.

Mr Reynolds denied the Government is breaking any NATO rules, telling GB News: “These definitions are international.” The Labour frontbencher added: “There’s nothing specific to the UK about this. But the idea that we wouldn’t include the incredible work of our intelligence services, security services, given the nature of modern threats to the UK, I’m afraid I have no time for this argument at all. There’s nothing in it.”

Mr Reynolds said Sir Ben’s comments were “a little bit rich”, accusing the Tory government he served in of “hollowing out” the Armed Forces. NATO members have agreed to spend 3.5% of GDP on core defence, with an additional 1.5% on broader defence and security-related investments such as protection of key infrastructure and resilience.

In his letter to the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Ben said the Treasury had recently changed the definition of what counts towards “NATO-qualifying defence spending”, The Telegraph reports. From 2027-28, this will include the “Single Intelligence Account” which at around £5 a year funds MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.

NATO’s definition of defence expenditure does not allude to intelligence agencies. Sir Ben wrote: “As the world gets more unstable and our allies start spending real cash increases in their budgets, Britain seems to be falling behind.

“Telling the men and women of the Armed Forces and the public that they are spending more while in real terms day-to-day funding on our Armed Forces is being cut is an insult to them. It fools no one inside defence, our allies and our enemies.”

Britain is currently spending 2.6% of national income on defence. This is set to rise to 2.7% in 2027-28 as part of what Labour has billed as “biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War”.

It comes after Number 10 was forced to row back on claims by Andy Burnham that Wednesday’s Budget will detail plans for how the Government plans to ramp up defence investment over the next decade. The Prime Minister said this would see Chancellor John Healey lay out a pathway to spending 3% by 2030 and 3.5% by 2035.

However, officials later suggested this will not happen until next year’s spending review as previously confirmed. Mr Healey is under growing pressure to set out a path for the 3% figure.

He resigned as defence secretary under Sir Keir Starmer over military funding earlier this year, warning Britain would be unprepared for war if spending did not reach 3% by 2030.