Kemi Badenoch has accused the Government of putting Britain’s national security at risk by delaying decisions on defence spending, demanding that Chancellor John Healey find the money for the military in next week’s Budget by cutting welfare expenditure and reining in borrowing.
The Conservative leader described the delay in setting out a route towards higher defence spending as “unconscionable”, warning that Britain could not afford to postpone difficult decisions while security risks mounted.
“If, at this Budget, he does not find the money to get to 3%, John Healey has an awful lot of explaining to do,” she said in a speech in Westminster.
“But we are hearing that the decision has been kicked into the spending review, and the spending review itself has been kicked into next autumn. If this is true, it is unconscionable.”
Mr Healey, who resigned as Sir Keir Starmer’s defence secretary amid a dispute over military funding, has argued that Britain must commit to spending 3 per cent of gross domestic product on defence by 2030. The Government is not expected to set out a full path towards NATO’s longer-term target of 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2035 until next year’s spending review.
Mrs Badenoch said the extra money required to reach 3 per cent of GDP was “less than a third of the increase in welfare since Labour came to office”, making the Government’s reluctance to commit funding a question of political priorities rather than simply affordability.
“Britain is at risk. John Healey said so himself, and no amount of political difficulty should prevent us from responding to that risk,” she said.
The intervention sets up a confrontation over the trade-offs facing the Treasury as it seeks to balance defence commitments, public spending and the cost of servicing the national debt. For the Conservatives, the argument is that the Government cannot credibly warn of growing security threats while delaying decisions on how to finance the response.
Mrs Badenoch also used the speech to warn against a possible increase in taxes on banks, amid speculation about next week’s Budget. She argued that higher taxes could feed through into more expensive mortgages and business loans, discouraging investment and leaving companies less willing to hire.
The result, she said, would be “fewer jobs across the country” as businesses either shed workers or abandon plans to start up.
Her attack broadened into a critique of what she portrayed as Labour’s preference for small announcements over politically difficult decisions. Mocking the Government’s plans to crack down on people playing music on public transport, she said: “It’s very easy to announce that you don’t like people making noise on trains. That is a job for ticket inspectors, not the Prime Minister.”
“If Labour’s plan is to kick tough decisions into the long grass, come out with tiny bits of micro policy, put up a few taxes, spend a bit more on welfare, and hope nobody notices before the next election, they are kidding themselves,” she added.
The Conservatives are also seeking to make the Government’s borrowing costs a central political issue. Mrs Badenoch highlighted the rise in 30-year gilt yields above 6 per cent this month, describing them as the highest since 1998 and arguing that the cost of financing government debt was constraining Britain’s choices.
“The UK is now paying more to borrow than any other advanced economy,” she said, adding that Britain was paying more than Greece and Spain and nearly 2 percentage points more than Germany.
“We have to stop borrowing so much. But instead of doing that, Labour are taking out loans to pay the interest on our loans.”
Mrs Badenoch claimed the Conservatives would deliver more than £70 billion in savings, including substantial reductions in welfare spending. The scale, timing and detailed composition of those savings will be central to scrutiny of the party’s fiscal proposals.
Labour rejected her account, accusing the Conservatives of ignoring their own record in government.
Bridget Phillipson, the Labour Party chair, said Mrs Badenoch was “totally tone deaf on the economy”, arguing that Conservative policies had driven up debt and interest rates while squeezing household finances and businesses.
She described the Tory approach as “reverse Robin Hood politics”, claiming it would favour the wealthiest while offering little to ordinary people. Labour, she said, had made “fair decisions” to reverse the Conservatives’ decline, pointing to economic growth, lower interest rates and returning private investment.
The competing claims expose the political fault line ahead of the Budget: how to fund Britain’s defence ambitions without further destabilising public finances or placing additional pressure on households and businesses.
For Mrs Badenoch, the immediate test is whether the Chancellor will commit money to defence now. For Labour, the challenge is to show that its approach to growth, taxation and spending can deliver greater security without undermining its wider economic promises.
With borrowing costs elevated and defence commitments looming, next week’s Budget will offer an early indication of how much room the Government believes it has to manoeuvre — and which priorities it is prepared to make taxpayers pay for.
Leave a Comment