Defence spending WILL rise at the Budget, top Tory confirms

DEFENCE spending WILL increase at the Budget, a top Cabinet Minister has confirmed.

Penny Morduant told broadcasters: “I am confident we will keep defence spending strong and it will be a priority of this Government.”

The Treasury and Ministry of Defence are haggling over replacing billions of kit handed to Ukraine - as more top brass go public with warnings the Armed Forces need billions more amid claims we only have 40 working tanks.

General Sir Richard Barrons, former commander of Joint Forces Command, called in the Sunday Express for Jeremy Hunt to approve an annual boost of £3 billion and stop “deliberately keeping defence broken”.

Ms Mordaunt told the BBC: “We have made commitments that we are going to increase defence spending, and there’s the operational budget which will come from the Treasury, but we also have to keep the core defence budget strong.

“The task that (Defence Secretary) Ben Wallace has is not just keeping everything going and obviously supporting Ukraine.

“He’s got to modernise our armed forces. And that means we’ve got to almost double run.

"We’ve got to rebuild these new technologies, but also keep our current operations very strong.”

It comes after Mr Wallace last week warned that the war in Ukraine has exposed the vulnerability of Europe’s defences.

He said forces across the Continent were paying the price for years of “hollowing out” that has seen ammunition stocks depleted, readiness levels reduced and essential maintenance neglected.

Mr Wallace said that at a time that the world was becoming “much more dangerous and unstable” it underlined the need for a long-term increase in the defence budget.