The foreign aid budget should be halved to fund a 3 per cent of GDP spend on defence, a senior Tory MP has said.
Former Cabinet Minister Robert Jenrick warns that the Armed Forces are ‘shockingly under-prepared’ and Britain’s nuclear deterrent has been ‘appallingly neglected’.
Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, he says ‘a significant chunk of our ‘development’ spend is incoherent and wasteful. It’s ludicrous that we send hundreds of millions to nuclear powers China, India and Pakistan’.
Mr Jenrick, who quit as immigration minister in protest at the Government’s handling of migration, says slashing the aid budget would generate about £7 billion of extra spending per year.
Former Cabinet Minister Robert Jenrick (pictured) warns that the Armed Forces are ‘shockingly under-prepared’
Mr Jenrick today backs the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday’s Don’t Leave Britain Defenceless campaign. Pictured, Chinese soldiers march during a parade
He says ‘voters deserve honesty about the hard trade-offs that follow’, pointing out that a plan to boost growth to fund defence is important but will not fix the problem in the short-term.
Mr Jenrick today backs the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday’s Don’t Leave Britain Defenceless campaign, which is calling for an immediate jump to 2.5 per cent, rising to at least 3 per cent by 2030.
He writes: ‘We have no choice but to increase our defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP to deliver the uplift we need to defend ourselves.
‘The dangerous and humiliating collapse of our nuclear deterrent is a disaster waiting to happen unless we urgently grip this crisis.’