A Treasury minister has said balancing welfare and defence spending “is not a zero-sum game”, amid stark warnings that the UK will have to increase its military budget to ensure national security during global volatility.
James Murray, the chancellor’s deputy, said the government was pushing ahead with the biggest sustained increase in defence investments since the cold war, but he would not say when it would publish its delayed defence investment plan.
George Robertson, a former defence secretary and head of Nato, has accused the Treasury of “vandalism” for failing to sufficiently boost the armed forces as the Iran conflict continues to highlight their depleted state. He suggested defence should be prioritised over more welfare spending.
The government has committed to reach 2.5% of GDP on defence from April next year, then 3% in the next parliament, but military chiefs believe there is still a £28bn shortfall after years of the armed forces being hollowed out by successive administrations.
With defence spending discussions due this week, military leaders are understood to have been asked to find £3.5bn in savings this year, even as the armed forces are being readied for conflict.
Government sources have not denied that Rachel Reeves has proposed increasing the budget by less than £10bn over the next four years amid concerns that any more would be unaffordable.
Lord Robertson publicly aired his frustration at the government’s failure to come forward with its 10-year spending plans for defence in a speech on Tuesday night, warning: “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.”
However, Murray, the chief secretary to the Treasury, suggested Robertson had got it wrong. “I think on the question of welfare and defence spending, it’s not a zero-sum game,” he told Times Radio.
“We’ve decided to have the biggest sustained increase in defence investments since the cold war … At the same time, we’ve begun our work to reform the welfare system, changing universal credit, reducing fraud and error, reforming motability. There’s more work to do.”
He added: “It’s not a zero-sum game because we are increasing the investment in defence as a result of our decisions to record levels … It’s worth also saying that the welfare system isn’t some kind of amorphous blob. It includes things like our decision to remove the two-child benefit cap, which helps hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty.”
The suggestion that public spending cuts may be necessary to fund defence has prompted an angry reaction on the left. The veteran MP Diane Abbott accused Robertson of putting “guns before butter” and said Labour would lose votes to the Greens if Keir Starmer followed the peer’s advice.
“We have already slashed foreign aid, and to cut welfare to spend on armaments is appalling,” she said. “People are going to start to wonder why they are voting Labour in the first place. It is not going to help us electorally.”
John Healey, the defence secretary, is understood to be pushing the Treasury for more money for defence. He was in Germany on Wednesday co-chairing a meeting of the 50-strong Ukraine Defence Contact Group as the government tries to ensure international focus does not slip from that conflict amid the crisis in the Middle East.