Gordon Brown 'misled inquiry' on defence spending
Thursday 18 March 2010
Latest in UK Politics
Related articles
On Facebook
From the blogs
Disclosure: We’d never even been to a club when we made our first single
For most of us, reaching eighteen years of age opens up a new world for exploration, spontaneity and...
Top of the posts: Drunken rants, the Western Fail and misogyny pushers
The most read blogs this week, as determined by stats.
Sepp Blatter: Penalty shoot-outs must remain, they’re football’s great leveller
As England supporters, we should scorn at any such deciding factor within football. On so many occas...
Why do some men consider the street as a female meat market?
Pronouncements on sexual inequality in the UK are normally met with an eye roll by my generation. As...
Gordon Brown has been forced into a damaging retreat after he finally admitted he misled the Iraq Inquiry and Parliament about the funds handed to the armed forces.
Senior military figures complained bitterly after the Prime Minster told Sir John Chilcot's inquiry that the budget for British troops had risen above the rate of inflation every year for the last decade. Mr Brown later repeated the claim in the Commons.
But, in a rare and surprising admission during Prime Minister's Questions yesterday, Mr Brown conceded that the claim was not accurate and that he would be writing to the inquiry to correct the statement. "I do accept that, in one or two years, defence expenditure did not rise in real terms," he said.
Mr Brown blamed "operational fluctuations" for the individual falls in real-terms spending.
A research note prepared by the House of Commons Library in October last year showed defence expenditure had fallen in real terms in four financial years since Labour came to power in 1997: 1997-98 (-2.2 per cent); 1999-2000 (-0.4 per cent); 2004-05 (-0.7 per cent); and 2006-07 (-0.1 per cent). The average annual increase between 1997 and 2009 was 2.7 per cent, it said, but noted that "this figure is likely to have been distorted by current operations".
The admission will increase pressure on the Chilcot inquiry to recall Mr Brown to give more evidence in the summer. A spokesman for the Prime Minister blamed the mistake on the complexity of the budget, adding that Mr Brown had corrected himself at the first opportunity. He refused to say when Mr Brown learnt of the error. "I don't think the Prime Minister has ever had anything to hide on this," he said. "He has done it at the time that he thinks it's appropriate."
Mr Brown had fiercely defended the claim at last week's PMQs. "I said to the inquiry very clearly first of all that the expenditure of the Ministry of Defence has been rising in real terms," he told David Cameron. "The defence budget... is rising every year."
Liam Fox, the shadow Defence Secretary, said Mr Brown's admission represented "a humiliating climbdown" from a week ago. "His attempt to rewrite history has failed and his fantasy figures have been exposed," he said.
The Prime Minister's evidence sparked condemnation from some senior military figures who said it was "disingenuous" of him to say that he provided military chiefs with everything they asked for.
General Sir Mike Jackson, the former chief of the general staff, said yesterday that he was annoyed by Mr Brown's repeated claims of a real-terms rise, "but it is for him to explain". While there had been a "modest" overall rise in spending since 1997, defence had not been given "the right resources to do what it is being asked to do operationally", he told BBC Radio 4's PM.
- 1 Mark Zuckerberg saved $111m by selling Facebook shares before stock slumped
- 2 Osborne adviser leaked budget information to Murdoch's man
- 3 Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim
- 4 Schoolboy spiked brownies with cannabis in cookery class
- 5 News in pictures
- 6 Britain's waste: Now it's coming back to haunt us
- 7 Lawyers told Hunt to stay out of Sky deal
- 8 In pictures: The bewildering face of China
- 9 UK plans for euro-immigrants surge
- 10 Is Ridley Scott the most macho man in movies?
- 1 Mark Zuckerberg saved $111m by selling Facebook shares before stock slumped
- 2 Osborne adviser leaked budget information to Murdoch's man
- 3 Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim
- 4 Society: The only way is Finland
- 5 Schoolboy spiked brownies with cannabis in cookery class
- 6 Fat? Really? Olympic hope laughs off official’s jibe – but others aren’t amused
- 7 'Hello mum, this is going to be hard for you to read ...'
- 8 African monkey meat that could be behind the next HIV
- 9 Coke reveals its secret: It may need to carry a cancer warning
- 10 French in uproar over oral sex anti-smoking posters
Experience the Heineken Hub
Get free wi-fi and exclusive i content while you enjoy a tasty pint of Heineken at participating pubs.
Can you imagine a career in teaching?
Be inspired to teach - let real teachers show you how rewarding the job can be.
Playing a game-changing role during the Games
Cisco is providing the solutions for London 2012's complex IT needs.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Career Services
Day In a Page
The secret life of the red carpet
Up and away – how '7 Up' went global



Comments