Rishi Sunak rules out defence boost despite Russia being ‘most acute threat to the UK’s security’

Defence spending will suffer real term cuts for three years in a row due to soaring inflation, as Rishi Sunak ruled out giving more money to the sector.

Ahead of the Chancellor’s Spring Statement, Whitehall insiders had urged him to increase defence spending, given the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

However, no cash injection was given because £24 billion had already been awarded to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) over a four-year period as part of last year's Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy.

Russia was identified as the “most acute threat to the UK’s security” in the Spring Statement.

Referring to last year's funding boost, it said: “This settlement ensures the UK continues to exceed Nato’s two per cent of GDP funding guideline and remain one of the leading defence spenders in Nato.”

However, Prof Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director-general at the Royal United Services Institute, told The Telegraph: “I’m surprised that there wasn’t any announcement on defence, apart from the weapons being supplied to Ukraine.”

Prof Chalmers said that the latest inflation numbers suggested the MoD was set for a real terms cut in 2022, as well as 2023 and 2024.

“It looks to me that we will have defence cuts in real terms for three years in a row,” he said.

He added that as a result of the cuts, the MoD will have to “make some difficult decisions on pay levels” - which will in turn put a lot of pressure on the Armed Forces pay review body.

Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the Defence Select Committee, questioned the decision not to increase defence spending, warning that “our economy does not work in isolation”.

Mr Ellwood said: “The relative peace we’ve enjoyed since the Cold War has now abruptly ended. The rise in food, energy and fuel prices are directly related to the rapid demise in European security, which is likely to deteriorate further over the next decade.”

He added that the UK’s Armed Forces are “increasingly overstretched” and that this Government “should not ignore the Ukraine wake-up and miss the opportunity to upgrade our defence posture, given the state threats that are now clearly visible on the horizon”.

However Dr Liam Fox, a former defence secretary, said while he “always wants more defence spending”, the biggest problem was that “too many Nato countries don’t provide what they should”.

“The biggest problem is persuading them not to ride on coattails of our tax payers,” he said. “We’ve got to stop looking at Britain, the problem lies in Europe.”