LONDON: The UK’s most senior military figure has admitted the armed forces are not ready for a full-scale conflict “of the kind we might face”, warning he lacked the immediate funding for a rapid modernisation of the military.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, chief of the defence staff, told a committee of MPs on Tuesday that the military faced an in-year budget shortfall and would have to make difficult decisions, at a time when warnings of the threat from Russia have grown.
“We are not as ready as we need to be for the kind of full-scale conflict that we might face,” Knighton told the parliamentary defence committee.
While Knighton sought to shield the government from criticism by arguing that defence spending would rise from 2027, his comments are likely to add to concerns that the UK’s military ambitions are not yet backed by the necessary funding from Sir Keir Starmer’s government.
UK defence spending will rise to 2.5 per cent of GDP from 2027, up from around 2.3 per cent when Labour came to power. But commitments to raise spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2035 have not yet been allocated funding by the government. Knighton indicated he expected no additional funding.
