'It's Not New': Sally Nugent Leaves Grant Shapps Squirming Over Sunak's Defence Spending Pledge

Experts say the extra spending is £55 billion less than the PM claimed.
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Sally Nugent left Grant Shapps squirming.
BBC

Sally Nugent left Grant Shapps squirming amid claims the amount of extra money being spent on defence is actually £55 billion less than Rishi Sunak claimed.

The prime minister yesterday said the government would plough an extra £75 billion into the military between now and the end of the decade.

But an economist at the highly-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), Ben Zaranko, has said the real figure is only £20 billion.

He posted on X (formerly Twitter): “To get the £75 billion number, the government has assumed a baseline with spending frozen in cash terms and then added up all of the differences.

“If you instead assume a baseline of spending frozen as a % GDP, it’s an extra £20 billion over 6 years.”

On BBC Breakfast this morning, Nugent told the defence secretary that the government was misleading the public.

She said: “I’m particularly interested in information from an economist at the IFS this morning, who has said ‘to get to the £75 billion number, the government is assuming spending is frozen in cash terms and then added up all those differences’.

“If you instead assume a baseline of spending frozen as a percentage of GDP it’s not actually £75 billion extra, it’s £20 billion because you would have been spending that £55 billion already.”

Shapps insisted the amount of the extra money had been calculated “in the highly standard way”.

But Nugent told him: “It’s a little bit confusing though, isn’t it? That headline of the £75 billion is a little bit confusing to people who might just be quickly listening to a headline this morning or looking at the front page of a newspaper because it’s not absolutely completely straightforward about the actual number? I guess what I’m saying is it’s not new.”

Shapps insisted “it is new money”, but Nugent interrupted him to say: “Some of it is.”

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Rishi Sunak announced the spending boost at a press conference in Warsaw yesterday.
HENRY NICHOLLS via Getty Images

Announcing the spending boost yesterday, the prime minister said he was putting the UK defence industry “on a war footing”.

He said: “I believe we must do more to protect our country, our interests and our values.

“So today I am announcing the biggest strengthening of our national defence for a generation.”