I’ll back the Tory candidate who grows our Army and invests in defence, Ben Wallace says

BRITAIN needs a bigger Army, the Defence Secretary has signalled, as he vowed to back the Tory candidate he trusts to “invest in defence”.

Ben Wallace warned the war in Ukraine had exposed “vulnerabilities” in Britain’s defence.

Under Boris Johnson, he cut the Army by 10,000 troops – to its lowest level in 300 years – to free up cash for hi-tech kit including AI weapons and cyber.

But speaking after a visit to Ukraine’s neighbour Slovakia he said the British Army could increase its numbers for the first time in 70 years.

In a sign the cuts have gone too far he said, "you would see an increase in the numbers of the army,” if the MoD was funded with 3 per cent of GDP.

He insisted: “Defence needs more money because the threat has gone up."

He added: “Ukraine has shown that Britain needs to update its deep fires with long range artillery capabilities.

“All Western powers desperately need better counter-UAV capabilities, better anti-air.”

He warned more troops on their own, without hi-tech weapons to support them, would get slaughtered on a modern battlefield.

His new Army chief, General Sir Patrick Sanders, has made it clear he thinks his troop numbers are too low.

Gen Sanders said “mass” was key to deterring Putin's aggression.

In his first major speech as chief of the general staff, he said: “To put it bluntly, you can’t cyber your way across a river.

“Technology does not eliminate the relevance of combat mass.”

Mr Wallace is yet to declare for either Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak.

He told The Sun: “I will be supporting the person who I believe can be trusted to invest in defence and make us safer from the threats that I think have grown in the last 12 months.”

Truss has vowed to increase defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030.

Sunak rejected “arbitrary targets” but pledged to do what is needed to keep the country safe.

Mr Wallace said: “The reality is the international community benchmarks defence by the GDP percentage, that's just the reality of it.”

Britain is currently Europe’s top defence spender on 2.28 percent of GDP but is on course to slip to eighth place because of soaring inflation, Mr Wallace warned.

He said: “We'll go from the first in Europe to eighth in Europe and carry on falling.”

Under Boris Johnson, Mr Wallace signed off plans to slash the Army by 9,500 troops to just 72,500 by 2025.

He also axed 80 Challenger 2 tanks, 800 armoured vehicles and almost 100 aircraft despite Johnson’s 2019 pledge "not to cut our Armed forces in any form".

Boris later broke another manifesto commitment by not increasing defence spending by 0.5 percent above inflation.

The outgoing PM used a Nato summit in June to commit to increasing defence spending to  2.5 percent of GDP by 2025.