Labour’s increase in defence spending is “significant” but “not enough” to repair the country’s “hollowed-out” Armed Forces, former defence chiefs have said.
Sir Keir Starmer announced Britain will spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence from 2027, up from 2.3 per cent in 2024 and an increase of £13.4bn per year.
The Prime Minister said the expense is necessary to keep the country secure in the face of “tyrants” like Russia’s President Vladimir Putin “only respond to strength”.
Britain has found itself under pressure following criticism from US President Donald Trump, who has accused European countries of free-riding on America’s military strength and is due to meet Starmer on Thursday.
Trump’s comments have fuelled fears America may pull out of Nato if European allies don’t increase their spending on defence to 5 per cent of GDP.
Lord West of Spithead, the former head of the Royal Navy, told The i Paper that the increase to defence spending “needs spending straight away”.
“The last administrations – the Conservative and the Coalition – their failure to fund defence properly means that even more than 2.5 per cent is needed.
“The Prime Minister should be telling Trump when he goes [to Washington], that we’re looking to achieve it.”
Starmer told MPs that the Government will “set a clear ambition for defence spending to rise to 3 per cent of GDP in the next Parliament”.
Lord West believes the figure must be reached sooner if Britain is to be properly prepared for Russia’s war with Ukraine escalating into wider conflict in Europe.
“We might have to do it before the next Parliament if there’s going to be a war, if we’re going to have to fight,” he said.
The former head of the British Army, Lord Dannatt, said Labour’s announcement was a “step in the right direction but not enough”.
That it will mean cuts to the overseas aid budget was disappointing, he said, but he added: “I respect His Majesty’s Government’s right to change priorities.”
Starmer said aid will be reduced from 0.5 per cent of GDP to 0.3 per cent but promised the extra investment in defence funding will show “value for money” and announced a new “reform and efficiency” plan to be led by the Chancellor and Defence Secretary.
Lord West said the funding boost is “significant” but warned it will take some time to make a difference amid discussions over whether Britain could contribute to a peacekeeping force in Ukraine.
“It’s significant in terms of morale, in terms of placing a marker of where we’re going,” he added.
“It will help with hollowing out by replacing [missiles and ammunition] we’ve given to the Ukrainians, with maybe recruiting more people, for getting equipment, repairing the equipment we’ve got – all those areas have been hollowed out.
“[But] you can’t just conjure these things up immediately, that’s why I’ve been banging on for 14 years about it, it takes time to build ships, making sure we recruit enough people, we haven’t got ammunition. You can’t just switch the switch.
“At the moment if we were asked to provide a large peacekeeping force, we would have huge difficulty.”
Frank Ledwidge, a senior lecturer in war studies at the University of Portsmouth and a former military officer who served in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, does not expect the extra funding to make a major difference to Britain’s contribution to the war in Ukraine.
“This isn’t for Ukraine, this is for shoring up the dilapidated armed forces we’ve got. The basics need to be sorted out before anything else,” he said.
“We need to increase our submarines, we need to make sure we’ve got an adequate destroyer and frigate fleet as soon as possible, it’s essential for governing and securing our waters.
“The air force don’t need shiny jets but they do need early warning aircraft which they don’t really have. A missile shield is very expensive but it can be done.”
The Government has pledged to publish a strategic defence review [SDR] in 2025 setting out threats to the UK and how to meet them.
Dr Ledwidge said he is concerned the extra funding has been announced before the review has been published.
“It’s really strange they are making this announcement before the strategic defence review, it should have been the other way round,” he added. “It should be ‘let’s have a plan and then let’s see how much it costs’.
“Instead it’s ‘let’s throw lots of money at this and then we’ll shoehorn the review into it afterwards’. Questions remain about how the Armed Forces are configured and what their priorities are.
“This is going to end up in a whole lot of waste, I suspect, on hobby horses and ill-thought out and ill-managed programmes.”
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