Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch has vowed to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 by slashing Britain’s welfare bill. The Telegraph has the story.
In a speech on Thursday, the Conservative Party leader will set out “fully costed plans” to raise an extra £10 billion for defence by the end of this parliament.
Directly challenging John Healey, the Chancellor, to fund the Armed Forces properly, Badenoch will pledge that a future Tory government will find savings by reforming housing benefits and reimposing the two-child benefit cap.
Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, and the Chancellor are under increasing pressure from MPs to reach 3% by 2030, after Healey resigned as defence secretary earlier this year with a warning that an inability to commit to the target would “make the country less safe”.
Ahead of her speech, Badenoch said: “The first duty of every government is defence, and the Conservatives will always put our defence first.
“That’s why we are setting out our plans to reach 3% on defence spending by the end of this Parliament through further cuts to welfare and restoring the two-child benefit cap.
“John Healey resigned from Keir Starmer’s government saying Labour were not keeping our country safe. Now he is the Chancellor, he should adopt our plans and make sure our Armed Forces have the funding they need.”
The Conservatives say their savings will include £4 billion through housing benefit reforms, and £3.1 billion from reimposing the two-child benefit cap. They will end the £1 billion annual funding increase for the British Business Bank and save £1 billion by ending VAT exemptions for motability vehicles.
Other ways the Tories will raise funds include allocating £2.75 billion from the National Wealth Fund to a new national defence and resilience bank as part of the party’s sovereign defence fund, moving £2 billion of the civil research and development budget into defence and raising £200 million per year by scrapping Labour’s deal to give away the Chagos Islands.
It comes after Burnham was warned by one of his own MPs that relying on “vibes alone” would not keep the nation safe.
Worth reading in full.
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Oh isn’t that wonderful. She will cut welfare benefits then piss away the savings on defense. Thanks for nothing. How about cutting welfare and reducing taxpayers burden? I would love to hear just one of your incompetent politicians make that suggestion.
Badenoch is an anchor baby dumped on us by her fleeing mother. The Conservative Party is stuffed full of Liberals and will NEVER deliver what it often promises. Leave the ECHR.. ..yeah; right 🙄
It doesn’t matter. There is no money. Cutting out one thing to spend on another doesn’t solve the problem of Government overspending. It will not reduce the burrowing requirement, it will not reduce the debt.
Abolish the welfare State – let charities do their job, that’s what they are supposed to be for.
Return pubic services to the private sector particularly NHS Leviathan.
Get rid of Net Zero and climate change lunacy. Cancel all subsidies.
Close down all but six Government departments, fire 50% of the civil servants this week, then 50% of what’s left next week and shut down all the quangos.
Then reduce personal tax, tax on investment, tax on business.
Great post!
How about slashing the £1,000 a second we spend on Net Zero? This is like watching a burglar robbing and smashing up your house while you stand there wondering which vibrant Farrow and Ball colour to paint your hallway.
There is a worm in Badenoch’s pledge to cut welfare to fund defence. The pledge does not reduce government spending (and borrowing) it merely rearranges it between different budgets. Thus the need to reduce public spending overall is ignored and smoothed over in some Uniparty fine differences.
Toby stop plugging your conservative party, Reform announced they will cut 100 billion from public spending in their first 100 days, where is the article on that?
My thoughts exactly
This is all not too dissimilar to pledges made by students vying for positions in a student council.
Just like the students are ultimately powerless to deliver on anything. Badenoch and Farage can promise all they like, but the decisions will ultimately not be theirs.
It’s all just a load of talk and the delusion (or cynical pretence) of power.
The Daily Sceptic funded by the Tory party and the DT it seems?
We also don’t need extra defence spending.
Russia are no threat to anyone who doesn’t threaten them or their people living in Ukraine for centuries.
Aiding the neo-Nazis in Ukraine has already cost the UK over 100 billion pounds.
There are better things for HMG to spend OUR money on like keeping undesirables out of our country.
Well, I think we do need to have a fully fit for purpose military, a Navy with ships, and Air Force with planes and drones, and an Army that can be deployed in times of emergency to protect our borders. However, you are right about the rest. The levels of spending on peripheral or unjustified causes is staggering. They talk about billions as though it were buttons. If you were counting Pound coins, at a rate of 1 per second, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it would take you 32 years to count one billion. We write it off as though it were nothing.
Unfortunately there is no sensible debate to be had about Ukraine despite us seemingly heading toward a serious conflict with Russia. Any concern and you are a Russian bot or a traitor to the UK.