Wednesday 29 June 2022 09:24 AM Ben Wallace demands 'greater investment' in military amid Russia threat trends now
Ben Wallace today admitted the Tories will break a manifesto pledge on defence spending and called for 'increased investment' as Boris Johnson kicks off a NATO summit urging allies to boost funding.
The Defence Secretary acknowledged that the government will not manage to raise budgets by 0.5 percentage points more than inflation, as it soars towards 11 per cent.
But he fuelled a growing Cabinet row by demanding a surge in military spending from the 'middle of the decade', saying the threat from Russia means 'certain vulnerabilities' must be addressed.
At the NATO gathering in Madrid today, the PM will demand that countries 'dig deep' to meet the threat posed by Vladimir Putin, warning of a dangerous decade ahead.
He will call for the alliance to look at raising its target of spending 2 per cent of national income on defence.
Ben Wallace today admitted the Tories will break a manifesto pledge on defence spending and called for 'increased investment'
At the NATO gathering in Madrid today, the PM (pictured with Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese) will demand that countries 'dig deep' to meet the threat posed by Vladimir Putin , warning of a dangerous decade ahead
Prime Minister Boris Johnson talks to journalists on his plane during a flight from Germany where he was attending the G7 Summit to the NATO Summit in Madrid. At a summit, the Prime Minister will ask NATO to raise its target of spending 2 per cent of national income on defence
Mr Wallace, who is attending the Nato summit in Madrid, said no government delivered '100 per cent' of what it promised in manifesto.
He said the election programme spelled out 'what we are going to try to deliver', adding it 'would have been different' if ministers had known Covid was coming.
Mr Wallace said that while he had enough funding for the 'here and now', extra investment was needed in the next Government spending round from the middle of the decade.
'We were prepared to take certain vulnerabilities on board in the middle of the decade as we got rid of some equipment and re-equipped anew. I think the invasion of Russia into Ukraine has changed that,' he told Sky News.
'That is why I think discussions are so important for the middle-of-decade funding. In the here and now we are rightly set. The question is what happens in the middle of the decade.
'My settlement was done before Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia is very, very dangerous on the world stage. The world is less secure than it was two, three years ago and is not looking likely to change for the rest of the decade.
'That is the moment, in the middle of the decade, to say we should commit to increased funding.'
Mr Johnson appears to be on a collision course with Mr Wallace and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss who both want a substantial increase in spending in response to the war in Ukraine.
In an extraordinary intervention yesterday, Mr Wallace warned there was a 'real risk' Russia could
