Government 'living a lie' over defence budget as military figures rally around Gavin Williamson
The Government has been accused of putting at risk Britain's status as a global military power by prioritising the NHS over defence.
Senior military figures have rallied around Gavin Williamson as the row over the armed forces budget deepens, with the Defence Secretary highly likely to make a pitch for more cash at a crucial meeting with the Prime Minister next week.
It comes after Theresa May pledged a £20 billion-a-year funding boost to the NHS and refused to confirm that the UK will remain a 'tier one' military power under her leadership.
General Lord Houghton, the former chief of the defence staff, accused the Government of 'living a lie' over its defence budget. He urged ministers to 'come off the fence' and decide if they want Britain to remain a leading military force.
He said that a 'hard choice' needed to be made between making the money available to pay for plans put forward in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review or to 'diminish ourselves' and reduce capability.
Comparing Ministry of Defence funding to that of the NHS, Lord Houghton said: "To me it is quite remarkable that what is being promised to the health service as an increment is more than twice, on an annual basis, the annual defence budget.
“By all means more funding for health can win you tactical advantage in domestic elections but they don’t enhance Britain’s influence and power and respect in the world if that is the sort of country we want to be.”
He said the Government 'has a duty to the nation to make it aware of what the true nature of the security of the country is' and that the 'protection of the nation' was paramount.
“To be honest we have slightly deluded the public of late that we have a defence programme which frankly we know, the insiders know, those who run the select committees are aware, is unaffordable,” Lord Houghton added.
“So we are to an extent living a lie and we stand to me at a strategic crossroads.
“We have got to come off the fence one way or another and it might be, and it is a wholly worthy opinion, that the United Kingdom should cease to be a world military power.”
The Commons Defence Select Committee has called for the Government to raise defence spending from the NATO minimum of two per cent of GDP to three per cent – around £60 bn a year.
It is currently around £36bn.
Meanwhile military chiefs are said to be looking for an additional boost to the defence budget of between £2bn and £4bn.
