Scrap tax cuts and boost defence spending, says former security minister

The Government should scrap planned tax cuts and increase spending on defence to 2.5 per cent of GDP instead, a former security minister has said.

Baroness Neville-Jones was a security and counter terrorism minister to David Cameron, now Lord Cameron, until 2011.

Prior to this she was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the government body that oversees the security services, GCHQ and defence intelligence.

Speaking to Times Radio on Monday morning, the Tory peer said that defence spending should be increased to 2.5 per cent of GDP – up from the 2.27 per cent currently allocated.

Lady Neville-Jones said that “the threats are growing” as well as “the level of danger”.

She continued: “I think, yes, we do have to increase, up our level of defence and security expenditure.

“I think there are two sides to this. There is when conditions allow and there are also when conditions require.

“So I think it all depends on how high a priority you regard the security and defence of the nation as being.

“And I think it’s undeniable that it’s mounting that ladder. And we may have to…alter our priorities and spend more on defence.”

‘British people are sensible’

Lady Neville-Jones suggested that the public would understand and support an increase in defence spending, even if it came at the expense of long-awaited tax cuts.

She said that people “aren’t foolish” and that “to be serious about defence, they [the Government] do actually have to explain why it is that we need to spend more money on armaments, why we need to reopen some of our defence supply lines and start manufacturing”.

She continued: “I think that we are not equipped to do so at the moment to leap from doing nothing, or not doing nothing but not adequately explaining, to suddenly saying, well, we’ve got to up the expenditure on defence.

“I think, were that to be given, I think British people are sensible and I think they would support extra expenditure even at the price of not having tax cuts.”

Her comments come as pressure is piled on the Government to up its defence spending after no extra money was dedicated to defence in the Chancellor’s spring Budget.

James Heappey, then Armed Forces minister, resigned amid the row and told MPs that “both main parties should strongly consider a further increase in defence spending in the next parliament”.

Grant Shapps, the current Defence Secretary, said a week after Jeremy Hunt delivered the Budget that the Government’s defence spending should rise to “about 3 per cent”.

Mr Shapps told The Telegraph in March: “I coined the phrase ‘moving from post-war to pre-war’. We therefore have to be much more prepared.

“Defence is the best way to protect ourselves against a military conflict, you have to show your adversaries, so I am clearly in favour.”

‘Cut foreign aid to fund defence spending’

Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, wrote in the Mail on Sunday last weekend to call for the same, to be funded by a 50 per cent cut to foreign aid spending.

Mr Jenrick said that between war in Ukraine, huge military spending by China and attacks by the Houthi rebels on British ships, the country faces “the greatest [security threats] in a generation”.

And Tory MP Jeremy Quin, chairman of the defence committee, has called repeatedly for an uplift in defence spending.

Speaking to Times Radio alongside Lady Neville-Jones, he said that a boost to at least 2.5 per cent should happen “the sooner the better”.

He added: “My personal view, not the view of my committee, is certainly very worried about the increase in risk and worries about the readiness of our Armed Forces.

“With the improving economy, I very much hope the defence will be prioritised.”

Other European countries have reassessed their defence spending since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

According to a report by the European Defence Agency, 20 of the 27 EU member states upped their spending last year.

Sweden spent an extra 30 per cent on defence, compared with Lithuania’s 28 per cent and Spain’s 19 per cent.

Sweden and Finland have been admitted as new members to Nato since the war in Ukraine began.