Ben Wallace has cast doubt on the viability of a pledge made by Conservative leadership contender Liz Truss to dramatically increase the defense budget, warning that his department will not be able to put the extra billions to good use immediately.
The defense secretary, a Tory front-runner, declined to say which of the three leadership candidates he would back, but did not appear enthused by the Truss’ pledge to lift defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2026 and 3% in 2030 .
“If they just gave me a pile of money tomorrow morning, I wouldn’t be able to spend it,” Wallace said while visiting the Farnborough Air Show when asked if he supported the foreign secretary’s pledge.
Truss’s proposal would increase defense spending by just over £10bn over four years from its current £48.2bn, based on figures provided to the Guardian by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and by a further £12bn or more over the period by 2030.
That would be more than double the increase announced by outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a NATO summit last month, where he pledged to raise defense spending from the current 2.1 percent of GDP to 2.5 percent by 2025. by the end of the decade.
Truss said overnight that the increased threat from Russia and China required an urgent response and that her proposals would make the UK “the most capable power in Europe” and she would revisit plans to cut the size of the army by nearly 10,000.
“We live in an increasingly dangerous world, where the threat level is higher than a decade ago, and we need a stronger deterrent to meet these threats and ensure Britain leads on the global stage. Ultimately, it requires more resources,” Truss said in an interview with the Times.
Wallace said he supported “any candidate who agrees we should spend more on defence”, but argued Britain lacked the industrial capacity to make the most of an immediate surge in funding. “You have to recruit people … you have to execute them, so I’m realistic about what you can do here and now,” he told reporters.
The defense minister was seen as a strong contender for the vacant party leader role before announcing he did not intend to run. Since then, Wallace has refrained from endorsing either contender, although he has hinted that he would in the future. “Good things come to those who wait,” he added.
Truss’ pledge came as the candidates sought to attract 31 supporters of Tom Tugendhat, a former Territorial Army reserve officer who had also pledged to raise defense spending to 3% of GDP. That helped Truss win 15 votes on Tuesday, nearly half of the pool available.
Frontrunner Rishi Sunak, a former chancellor, has refused to recommit to the 2.5% pledge – despite agreeing to it when he was in government. Instead, he described NATO’s existing 2% target as “a floor, not a ceiling”.
The third contender, Mordaunt, a former defense secretary and Royal Navy reservist, previously pledged to stick to Johnson’s NATO commitment to increase defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030. But she won just 10 votes from Tugendhat and was only 6 votes ahead on Tuesday night.
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