DEFENCE Secretary Grant Shapps has said increased spending on defence is important for the UK as the world “is looking more dangerous”.
He said on GB News: “You've seen what's been happening in Ukraine, Putin continuing to prosecute his illegal war. You've seen what's happening in the Middle East with Iran firing on Israel with hundreds of projectiles.
“The world as we've been saying, as I was saying back in my speech in January, is looking more dangerous. I think it's very important for Britain to play its leadership part and the Prime Minister has done that in a very significant way.
“And I think this is very, very good news for the United Kingdom, our security, and also for our leadership in the rest of the world.”
In a discussion with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, he continued: “We've expended a lot of munitions, so this could be missiles and other things with Ukraine, and in fact, just yesterday, we gave Ukraine the biggest single package of new gifted items since the war began.
“All of that needs replacing but I think also the war in Ukraine shows you really need more of this stuff in the first place, that in other words, stockpiles need to be higher.
“That's one of the things we've said…that we'll have an extra £10 billion, a billion per year for 10 years, over and above what we normally do with munitions.
“So that's a very good example but there are very many others, including the way that we treat our people, how good the accommodation is, new technology, like the DragonFire laser system, which for £10 pounds a shot could take down incoming drones.”
He denied that making 70,000 job cuts in the Ministry of Defence was unrealistic: “It sounds huge until you learn that actually this just takes us back to where we were pre-Covid in the civil service.
“We’d announced actually that we were planning to do it, this will take it a little bit faster, but nonetheless, I don't think there's anything unreasonable.”
