The minister said in a Sunday newspaper interview that the military was “actually going to grow” for the first time since the end of the cold war – although he did not specifically commit to reversing a planned cut in the size of the army, the Guardian reported.
Truss had promised during her leadership campaign to lift defence spending from 2.1% of GDP to 3% by 2030, comfortably above a commitment made by Boris Johnson in June to increase it to 2.5% by the end of the decade.
Wallace said Truss’s promise would be worth billions more to the military. “On current forecast, that’s roughly a defence budget of £100bn in 2029-30. We’re currently on £48bn. So that’s the difference. In eight years, that’s a huge amount,” he told the Sunday Telegraph.
Wallace said he could not yet speculate on which parts of the military would benefit. It was “highly likely” the size of the army would grow, he said, and he suggested expansion was likely in anti-drone warfare, signals intelligence and artillery.
ZZ/PR