𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Rachel Reeves has been accused of not prioritising defence after reports suggested she was withholding funding to the Ministry of Defence (MOD) due to a lack of women in the department. The Treasury and the MOD are understood to be at loggerheads over increases to the defence budget, with a key defence investment plan (DIP) still not released, despite being promised in the autumn, due to an inability to fund commitments.

The Chancellor is offering an increase to the defence budget of just £10 billion over four years despite the department having a £28 billion black hole in its finances. The department has also been told to make cuts of £3.5 billion this year. According to the Spectator, Ms Reeves has told officials: “Why should we give money to a department that’s so far away from gender parity?”

Shadow Defence Secretary James Cartlidge accused the Chancellor of favouring welfare over defence.

He told the Daily Express: “It’s hard to believe that the Chancellor is denying the vital funding the MOD needs because there are too many men in the Army, but this story does underscore that we are now seeing a daily briefing war over the Defence Investment Plan (DIP).

“What we know for certain is Labour have chosen to spend billions on benefits rather than properly fund our defence.

“Politics is about priorities. If Labour were serious about Defence, they would take Kemi up on her offer to work together to find welfare savings.

“Even Lord Robertson, former Labour Defence Secretary and former head of NATO said ‘Starmer cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.’ – serious times call for serious leaders not student politics.

“That’s why we would restore the two-child benefit cap and spend the savings on Defence alongside our plan to divert billions from Ed Miliband’s vanity Net Zero projects so that we can reach 3% of GDP on defence this parliament.”

Labour have pledged to raise the defence budget to 2.5% of GDP by next year, with a further commitment to increase spending to 3% in the next parliament.

The commitment has been widely criticised as being too little too late, with defence minister Al Carns recently warning that the UK could be at war with Russia within three years.

UK Defence leaders have told the Daily Express that they are ready and waiting to supply the MOD with vital equipment and munitions in their bid to rearm in order to prepare for and deter a future conflict.

However delays to the DIP are understood to be frustrating the ability of small and medium enterprises, with experience in producing cutting-edge technology such as drones, to up production due to a lack of orders from the MOD.

Rob Taylor, 38, a former Royal Marine and Founder of 4GD, says that defence spending has not reached the levels seen before the 2024 general election when restrictions were put in place due to purdah.

He said: “Even with all the turnover in the previous Conservative government, it was still going relatively well. And then we hit the pre-election spending halt, which to be fair, is normal. The problem is it never really got started again. So we had a pre-election spending halt.

“Then we went in to wait for the Strategic Defence Review. Then we went, let’s wait for the defence industrial strategy. And then we went, right, let’s wait for the defence investment plan.

“And effectively, deliberate or otherwise, it’s just been excuse after excuse after excuse. I think, though, where it’s compounded is there just isn’t any money and no one’s being realistic about that. There isn’t any available money. “