Kemi Badenoch told Keir Starmer to get a grip on defence spending yesterday, amid worries the issue will rumble on for months.
The Conservative leader tore into Sir Keir in the Commons over his failure to set out his plans to increase military funds, which have been delayed for over half a year.
Mrs Badenoch seized on criticism by ex-Nato chief George Robertson, who warned this week that Labour’s dithering was leaving the UK ‘in peril’.
During angry clashes at Prime Minister’s Questions, she pointed out that while ministers have published plans for lavish welfare spending until 2031 there is no equivalent for defence.
‘The Prime Minister will not fund our military, because he wants to fund more welfare,’ she said.
‘That is why he has a welfare plan to 2031, but no defence investment plan at all.’
She challenged Sir Keir to address the warning from Lord Robertson that ‘we cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget’.
The Prime Minister said he ‘respected’ Lord Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary who wrote the Government’s strategic defence review last year.
Should defence spending ever be sacrificed to fund welfare in today’s uncertain world?
But he disagreed with the peer’s analysis, pointing out he had already pledged to increase defence spending to 2.6 per cent of GDP by cutting foreign aid.
‘My responsibility is to keep the British people safe, and that is a duty I take seriously,’ Sir Keir told the Commons.
‘That is why I don’t agree with his comments.’ He insisted the long-delayed Defence Investment Plan, which was due to be published last autumn, would be released ‘as soon as possible’.
It comes as more Labour figures called for the Prime Minister to go further and faster on the matter.
Geoff Hoon yesterday became the third former Labour defence secretary to urge the Government to tackle the issue.
He told GB News that Lord Robertson’s decision to intervene showed something had gone ‘seriously wrong’.
Mr Hoon added: ‘We have to get on with this, and it’s incumbent upon the Prime Minister and ultimately the Treasury to fall in, in order to get this right, to protect our country.
‘There are occasions on which it is necessary to twist the arm of the Treasury, and doing so in this very public way is perhaps a way to force the Treasury to recognise that defence spending in the present international situation must be a priority.’
And Tan Dhesi, Labour chairman of the Commons defence committee, told MPs: ‘We as a nation are ill-prepared to face the threats in this more volatile world.’
The Daily Mail is campaigning for increased defence funding.
But government sources yesterday claimed such spending plans could not be published now because of rules around ‘purdah’, which bans official action in the build-up to the local elections.
But insiders said Rachel Reeves is still refusing to provide the cash needed to fund the ten-year programme. The plan may not be finalised until June, one claimed.
Funding for the scheme is said to be £28billion short of what is needed over the next four years.
Yet Ms Reeves has offered just £10billion – and asked the Ministry of Defence to find a further £3.5billion in ‘efficiency savings’ this year.
