Britain can't boost defence spending without making cuts in other areas, Rachel Reeves warns
7 December 2024, 00:03
Rachel Reeves has warned Labour will not be able to raise defence spending without making cuts in other areas.
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Announcing a massive “line by line” audit of government spending, the Chancellor said other departments would need to suffer if Britain wanted to boost its military spending.
It comes after Sir Keir Starmer’s government pledged to set out a plan to raise military spending to 2.5% of GDP, but failed to give an exact date.
Reeves was unable to confirm if the spending goal would be achieved by 2030 as she warned areas like schools and hospitals could be forced to lose out.
Military analyst claims British Army would 'only last weeks' in a major war
Speaking to the MailOnline, Reeves said: “There is not some magic pot for any area of government spending – it has to come out of this (spending) envelope.
“We’re doing the defence review at the moment, being led by George Robertson, former head of Nato, and that will be reporting next year. And then we’ll set out the trajectory for defence spending alongside that.
“It’s not just about money. It’s also about making sure we’re getting value from what’s spent and those projects are properly delivered.”
Defending her commitment to defence, Reeves told the publication she boosted spending by £3 billion in her autumn Budget and delivered a further £2.3 billion in aid for Ukraine by using profits from frozen Russian assets.
Fears around Britain’s defence spending come after a minister warned the entire British Army would be destroyed in "six months to a year" in a major war.
Al Carns, the veterans minister, who is also a reservist, issued the warning as he spoke of the importance of rebuilding the UK's reserve forces.
During a speech at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, Mr Carns said: "In a war of scale - not a limited intervention, but one similar to Ukraine - our army for example on the current casualty rates would be expended - as part of a broader multinational coalition - in six months to a year.”
He said the casualty rate suffered by Russian forces in Ukraine - killed and injured - is around 1,500 soldiers a day.
He said this ability to absorb such losses and keep fighting is part of Russia's plan and is why Britain needs to rebuild the depth of fighting forces it has available.
Mr Carns, a former full-time Royal Marine colonel before moving into politics this year, said Russia would soon be moving onto its third army in Ukraine.
"That doesn't mean we need a bigger army, but it does mean you need to generate depth and mass rapidly in the event of a crisis," Mr Carns said.
"The reserves are critical, absolutely central, to that process. Without them we cannot generate mass, we cannot meet the plethora of defence tasks."
The reserve forces have been underinvested in since limited funding was prioritised towards the full-time army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force following the Cold War.
It means the reserves are undermanned, do not receive all the training they need and lack equipment, from body armour to weapons and fighting vehicles.
