Tories would reinstate two-child benefit cap to fund defence, says Badenoch | Conservatives
The Conservatives will reintroduce the two-child benefit cap and use the savings for a sweeping spending splurge on defence, which Kemi Badenoch said would be “the largest peacetime rearmament program in the history of our country”.
Speaking at a defense conference in London, the Conservative Party leader criticized the government for Britain’s “lack of preparedness” for war, which recent world events have exposed.
Badenoch said Britain needed to “reassert” itself as a global power and said the Conservative Party had pledged “the largest net increase in British troops under any government since the Second World War” if they came to power at the next general election.
The commitment will include the recruitment of 6,000 full-time soldiers and 14,000 reservists. The Conservatives say they can raise £20bn for the initiative by reintroducing the two-child benefit limit and reallocating money to net-zero projects.
Badenoch said: “We must look beyond this conflict in the Middle East and develop the resources we need to respond to this new era of threats. We have much work to do to reassert Britain as a power in the world.”
“First of all, we must rearm. If our army is strengthened, our hand will also be strengthened. We must undertake the largest peacetime rearmament program in the history of our country.”
Badenoch was accused by Labor of saying Britain should have prematurely joined Donald Trump’s war on Iran, which has become an international crisis that the president is struggling to end.
Speaking of the UK-US relationship, which has been strained by Keir Starmer’s reluctance to play an aggressive role in the conflict, Badenoch said he found Trump’s public criticism of the UK prime minister “disturbing”.
He said: “I find the nature [Trump’s] The public statements are very worrying because everyone is watching. This is not just about social media and the citizens of our respective countries.
“Iran is watching, China is watching, Russia is watching… What they see, and it’s getting stronger, is that Western ties are weakening, and that’s not something we should allow.”
Starmer defended his decision to limit Britain’s involvement in the Iran war to “defensive” action by refusing to allow the US to launch large-scale attacks from its bases. The Prime Minister said Britain had acted in the national interest by limiting its involvement in the war to “defensive” action after the US-Israeli attack on Tehran and Iran’s retaliation against US allies in the Gulf.
The Labor government has said it has committed to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defense by 2027, rising to 3 per cent in the next parliament. But amid reports of tensions between the Ministry of Defense and the Treasury, it is under pressure to release the defense spending plan first promised last autumn.
Labor ministers argued they had received years of underinvestment from the previous Conservative government and accused the party of the “emptiness” of the armed forces.
Conservative defense spending fell 22% between 2010 and 2017, but rose steadily from that point. It has now returned to 2010 levels.
