Politics news: Labour faces defence spending investigation on Budget eve amid claims public was misled
Live Labour faces defence spending investigation on Budget eve amid claims public was misled Stay up-to-date with all the latest political coverage from GB News below Labour is facing an investigation over claims that it misled the public about defence on the day before Andy Burnham and John Healey's first Budget. Former defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace has accused the Government of inflating its defence budget by including billions of pounds in intelligence spending.
Left out here: Leaves out what changes the picture
GB News calls Sir Ben Wallace only a former defence secretary and never says he is a Conservative. The complaint against the Labour Government therefore reads as a neutral expert's, not an opposition politician's.
How we know
- The Telegraph reported“The former Conservative defence secretary wrote to the statistics watchdog”Labour defends including intelligence spending in defence budget (opens in a new tab)
He claims the move creates a misleading impression that Britain is on course to meet its Nato spending commitments. Nato rules stipulate that funding for security services does not qualify as defence expenditure. In a letter, Sir Ben wrote: "As the world gets more unstable and our allies start spending real cash increases in their budgets, Britain seems to be falling behind. "Telling the men and women of the Armed Forces and the public that they are spending more while in real terms day-to-day funding on our Armed Forces is being cut is an insult to them.
"It fools no one inside defence, our allies and our enemies." The Office for Statistics Regulation confirmed it would consider the concerns raised in Sir Ben's complaint. A spokesman said: "We can confirm that the Office for Statistics Regulation will consider the concerns that have been raised with us in relation to the presentation of UK defence spending by the Government." A government spokesman told GB News: "The UK is the third highest spender in Nato and we, as with all Allies, calculate defence expenditure in accordance with Nato's definition, which has not changed."
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