Rishi Sunak Pledges £11.3 Billion to Defence Spending and Warns of ‘Dangerous World’

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty with members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as they observe a minute's silence to mark the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, outside 10 Downing Street, London, on Feb. 24, 2023. (Jordan Pettitt/PA Media)

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has committed to spending £11.3 billion on defence over the next five years, after warning in the King’s Speech on Tuesday of a “more dangerous world.”

In his introduction to the King’s Speech, Mr. Sunak said: “We’re going beyond our baseline commitment to spend 2 percent of GDP on defence with a new ambition of 2.5 percent.”

According to the House of Lords Library, the only NATO member countries who spend more on defence than the UK are Greece, the United States, Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia.

Mr. Sunak said he is “backing our brilliant armed forces, supporting Ukraine, leading in NATO, and striving for peace and stability in the Middle East.”

“We will continue to invest in our armed forces—the finest in the world—ensuring that they have what they need to protect our country and keep people safe, while also supporting our fantastic veterans,” added Mr. Sunak.

But his fine words about the military belie serious concerns about Britain’s armed forces, especially the army, which has been reduced to 77,000 and is expected to shrink to 73,000 in the next few years.

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In July the then Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, said he thought “73,000 is enough to meet today’s threat” and said: ”We ... have to be honest about the size of our defence budget envelope. There is no point pretending that we can have huge numbers without a defence budget to match.”

Concerns About Army Recruitment

Conservative MP Mark Francois raised his concerns about army recruitment in a defence committee meeting in September.

He said: “In the financial year 2022/2023 the army hit about 80 percent of its recruiting targets but it’s been worse than that for quite a few years. So the cumulative effect of that has been thinning out of a lot of the regiments.”

At the time, Tim Ripley, a defence analyst and author of “Little Green Men: The Inside Story of Russia’s New Military Power,” told The Epoch Times: “I would suggest to you that they actually are reducing the number of people recruited into the British Army on purpose.”

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (L) shaking hands with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 19, 2022. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/Handout via PA Media)

But the war in Ukraine and the Hamas attacks on Iran on Oct. 7—which is widely suspected to have been encouraged by Iran—have further strengthened the Ministry of Defence’s hand when it comes to demanding money from the Treasury.

Mr. Sunak said this week: “We will continue to work with our international partners on the most pressing crises—supporting Ukraine to prevail against Putin’s war of aggression, supporting Israel’s right to self-defence after Hamas’s horrific act of terror, delivering humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, and working to revive the prospects for peace and stability in the Middle East.”

Sunak: ‘We Live in a More Dangerous World’

He added: “We recognise that we live in a more dangerous world and that we must shape our response accordingly.”

Mr. Sunak also pointed out, “with Japan and Italy, we’re building the next generation of combat air fighter jets” and he highlighted the AUKUS partnership with the US and Australia, which aims to counter China and others with nuclear submarines.

He also highlighted the importance of developing oil and gas and being less reliant on foreign energy suppliers and he added: “We’re securing our supply chains by doing trade deals around the world, creating new partnerships on semiconductors with the likes of Japan, and negotiating a new critical minerals agreement with the U.S.”

The House of Lords Library, in a briefing published on Oct. 27, said: “In 2021/22, the UK spent £45.9 billion on defence. This was £3.6bn higher than the previous year in absolute terms, and ... it is £2.5 billion higher after accounting for the effects of inflation.”

They went on to say: “The government allocated an additional £16.5 billion to the defence budget over the period 2020/21 to 2024/25 as part of the 2020 spending review. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and renewed calls for an increase to defence spending, the spring budget 2023 allocated an additional £5 billion to defence spending over the next two years and a further £2 billion per year in subsequent years up to 2027/28. This increases defence spending by a total of £11 billion over this five-year period.”