UK defence minister non-committal on whether PM Sunak will keep spending pledge

Asked how confident he was that Sunak and Hunt would maintain the target, Wallace told a parliamentary committee: "how fixed this new prime minister and the chancellor is going to be on 3%, we'll find out at the budget." Wallace said that he was confident that defence spending was "moving up the funding priority ladder," but that his department's budget was particularly vulnerable to inflation given its large capital expenditure.

Britain's defence minister Ben Wallace said people would have to wait until a fiscal event on Nov. 17 to find out if a commitment to increase defence spending over the course of the decade would be maintained by new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Sunak and finance minister Jeremy Hunt are examining spending cuts and tax rises ahead of the Autumn Statement later this month, raising the prospect of a clash with the defence ministry.

Sunak's predecessors Boris Johnson, who Wallace supported, and Liz Truss had committed to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030, but Sunak has not said if he will keep it. Asked how confident he was that Sunak and Hunt would maintain the target, Wallace told a parliamentary committee: "how fixed this new prime minister and the chancellor is going to be on 3%, we'll find out at the budget."

Wallace said that he was confident that defence spending was "moving up the funding priority ladder," but that his department's budget was particularly vulnerable to inflation given its large capital expenditure. He said that he would seek to ensure that his department's budget was protected in real terms and that spending levels would be at least insulated from the impact of fluctuating exchange rates and inflation over the next two years.

"I'm confident that the argument has been made the defence needs to come back up the priority of investment. The next argument is how much by," he said. "Obviously as Defence Secretary I would like: 'by significant amounts', but I also live in the real world and the next two years there is a spending challenge we have to meet."