The country needs to be “woken up” to the threat of war, former Nato secretary general Lord Robertson has warned, as the Treasury admitted it has carried out no analysis of how to find the tens of billions of pounds needed to meet the UK’s defence spending promise.
Speaking to MPs on Tuesday, Lord Robertson said Britain’s Nato allies were “disturbed” by the delay to the government’s defence investment plan, which he called “unconvincing”. The former Labour defence secretary, who wrote a strategic review for Sir Keir Starmer, said the delay had “caused a degree of confusion inside the Ministry of Defence and considerable disturbance in the industry as well”.
“Lord Robertson warns of 'corrosive complacency' as Treasury admits no analysis on how to hit 3.5% Nato target.”
His warning came as the prime minister landed in Ankara for a Nato summit attended by US President Donald Trump. Sir Keir has said “there could be an attack by Russia on Nato as soon as 2030”. Last week he set out plans to increase military spending by £15bn over the next four years, taking it to 2.7% of GDP. But Lord Robertson told the Defence Committee the challenge was “bigger, more serious, and earlier than we had anticipated, and yet the defence investment plan itself doesn’t come up to it”.
He accused the government of “corrosive complacency” towards defence, a phrase first used in a speech in April, saying it “applies to the whole political leadership”. “There is a degree of complacency in the country as a whole, which I think is very very dangerous,” he said. “People need to be woken up. We need to alarm people because as the review said, we are under daily attack at the present moment and that will be ramped up.”
Lord Robertson said Britain “will have a force to fight with when the day comes” but warned a “crisis” may be needed to raise sufficient funds. “In this country, we need to get used to the fact we are no longer immune and we are being targeted,” he added.
The Treasury’s failure to plan for the longer-term target of 3.5% of GDP by 2035 was laid bare on Wednesday when chief secretary Lucy Rigby told a joint session of the Treasury and defence committees that no analysis of the trade-offs had been done. “No, is the short answer,” she said when pressed. The failure to set out a spending path was among the reasons for the dramatic resignation of defence secretary John Healey.
Rigby repeatedly stressed that funding would be a matter for “the next prime minister”, widely expected to be Andy Burnham. She said the interim goal of 3% in the next parliament would be addressed at the spending review due in mid-2027. Liberal Democrat MP Bobby Dean pointed out the scale: £30-40bn extra, equivalent to 3p to 4p on all rates of income tax. Rigby acknowledged there would have to be a debate about “public consent”.
Whitehall departments have been asked to cut investment plans to fund the shift, but Rigby conceded an extra £4.7bn will have to be found in the autumn budget. “Money is finite,” she said. Sir Keir has said the defence investment plan will be built on by his successor, but with the Treasury yet to do the sums, the next prime minister faces a stark choice over how to wake the country to the scale of the threat.