Former Defence Secretary Dame Penny Mordaunt has told GB News that Labour's defence spending plans are a "mess", following Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's latest pledge.
Ahead of the annual Nato Summit in The Hague, the Labour leader has pledged to meet the new target of five per cent of UK GDP on defence by 2035.
Starmer said the pledge enables the UK to "navigate this era of radical uncertainty with agility, speed and a clear-eyed sense of the national interest".
Delivering her verdict on GB News, Mordaunt stated that although she would "love" Britain to reach that target, the plan is nothing but "smoke and mirrors".
Penny Mordaunt has hit out at Keir Starmer's 'messy' pledge to increase defence spending to five per cent
GB News / PA
Mordaunt explained: "I would love it, but as you know, it's not funded. If Puff the Magic Dragon held a cigar party in the Palace of Versailles, you couldn't have any more smoke and mirrors than the Treasury has deployed today.
"Leave aside the 1.5 per cent, which is spent on things which aren't really defence but support our security, which could include road infrastructure, for example. What we're talking about is trying to meet the Nato new floor of 3.5 per cent in the next Parliament."
She added: "That's what Nato says we need to do as a minimum, and unless you've got a plan to to fund that, it doesn't matter what your ambitions are."
Criticising Labour further, Mordaunt highlighted that there are "still questions" following Chancellor Rachel Reeves's Spending Review.
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The Labour leader has pledged to meet the new Nato target of five per cent of UK GDP on defence
PA
Mordaunt told GB News: "And it's important, not just because you need that credibility, you also need to send a signal to industry that you're going to make that investment so it can gear up.
"You need to also send a signal which will enable nations to be smarter about their procurement and make the efficiency savings that are already baked into the MoD's budget. And I'm afraid at the Spending Review, there was no uplift to defence spending at all."
She added: "We've still got big questions about how this disastrous Chagos Islands deal is going to be funded, and even which department the budget is going to come from.
"And there's all sorts of questions around the ambition on savings that the department will make, so it's a mess."
Mordaunt told GB News that there are still questions on Labour's spending following their Spending Review
GB News
Issuing a stark warning to Labour over their spending, Mordaunt concluded: "The Treasury has not factored this into its budgeting.
"It doesn't matter what is said at Nato, it might give the Americans some hope that we really are stepping up. But the sad thing is we're not and we need to.
"This is a real moment for our nation, and if we don't pay the bills now on defence, which are are considerable, the price we are going to pay in the years to come in in blood and treasure are going to be unbearable."
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