Defence investment plan ‘too little, too late’ – shadow defence secretarypublished at 07:09 BST
07:09 BST
The defence investment plan is “too little, too late” and does not provide enough funding or military hardware to keep Britain safe, the shadow defence secretary says.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, James Cartlidge says that while some of the capabilities announced as part of the plan “sound impressive”, they will come into operation too late as “the threat we face is today”.
He accuses Keir Starmer of being “too weak” to deliver more funding for the plan, whilst also criticising the delay in its publication.
“We waited so long for this defence investment plan but because it hasn’t got the money, it isn’t delivering and it isn’t delivering soon enough,” he says.
Cartlidge is then quizzed over the Conservatives’ defence record during their 14 years in power, a period which saw Army numbers fall to their smallest since the Napoleonic era.
He says it is a “fair question” and he accepts that since 1989 “all governments in power thought that we had this thing called the peace dividend and spending fell”.
He says once Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 the situation changed, and he is proud of his party’s record in funding and arming Ukraine before that happened.