Chancellor Rachel Reeves says she will resist calls to raise taxes to increase defence spending
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has signaled she will resist clamor to raise taxes to meet rising defense spending in the face of growing global threats to Britain’s security.
Ms Reeves said it had already significantly increased the burden on taxpayers and she would “prefer not to have to do this again”.
Faced with growing concerns about threats from Russia, Iran and China, and under pressure from US President Donald Trump, NATO countries have increased defense spending over the past five years, but Britain has done so more slowly than many other countries.
The armed forces are thought to face a financial black hole of around £28bn over the next four years.
Former NATO chief and Labor leader Lord Robertson on Tuesday accused the government of “corrosive indifference” over military spending. The former defense secretary accused “non-military experts” at the Treasury of “vandalism”.
Some other defense figures also raised the alarm that Britain was unprepared for a possible war. Former Chief of the Defense Staff Lord Stirrup has warned that Britain is “badly exposed” and needs a decade to rebuild its defences.
NATO has reduced its forecasts for Britain’s defense spending this year from 2.4 percent to 2.31 percent.
But Ms Reeves insisted it had “delivered the biggest increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War”.
He told the International Monetary Fund summit in Washington DC: “National security always comes first, and as chancellor I will always do the right thing to protect our country.”
He stated that he received money from the overseas development budget to increase defense spending.
He added: “The biggest beneficiaries of my spending review last year were the NHS budget and the defense budget. Both saw large increases reflecting the choices we made as a government.
“We are working on the defense investment plan. It is a 10-year plan, so it is important that we get it right and spend the money on the right things.
“There is a lot of focus on the amount of money, but what is actually more important is how this money is spent and whether it meets the defense needs we have as a country, and we are currently working on this detail.
“Obviously we’re working on a number of options, but taxes have increased significantly in both of my budgets and I’d rather not have to do that again.”
Pointing out the Iran conflict had increased government borrowing costs, she said: “We already spend one in every £10 of what government spends on servicing the debt.
“And if we increase that debt further, we will only increase the amount we spend.”
