The government must grasp the nettle and cut welfare to fund defence

 HMRC kindly sent me a breakdown of how my taxes have been used. Some 21.3 per cent went towards welfare, compared with 5.5 per cent for defence.

For too long, Britain’s defence spending has remained at dangerously low levels (Leading Article, April 19). Even a relatively modest cut to welfare would free up significant funds, helping to ensure that our Armed Forces could win a war. At present, by many accounts, they could not – and in such an unfortunate event, there would be no welfare spending at all.

Clive Hodges

Chelmsford, Essex

SIR – The Prime Minister said he did not agree with Lord Robertson, who warned that “we are underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack… Britain’s national security and safety is in peril.”

He is in no position to disagree, since these are facts, long articulated by our service chiefs and now set out clearly as the expert opinion of a former Nato secretary general, Labour defence secretary and author of the stalled Strategic Defence Review.

What Sir Keir Starmer meant was that his Government was not going to do anything meaningful about the situation.

Lt Col Ian Tritton (retd)

Minety, Wiltshire

SIR – Rachel Reeves is considering issuing war bonds to fund increased defence spending (report, April 19). I suspect these would fail from the start.

First, increased taxation has reduced people’s real incomes, meaning they have less money to spare for such schemes. Secondly, and most importantly, people know that Labour cannot be trusted with money. I firmly believe that defence spending needs to rise, but I also know that the Chancellor would make a hash of this idea, as she does with everything else.

Mike Tickner

Winterbourne Earls, Wiltshire

SIR – Issuing war bonds would ultimately mean more debt. Although the idea is presented as a way of boosting defence spending, it would really just allow the Government to maintain its welfare spending. The correct course of action would have been to rein in that spending in the first place.

Graham Mitchell

Haslemere, Surrey

SIR – I believe that National Service should be brought back as a matter of urgency. It would provide much-needed discipline for the young, and give them skills and experience that would benefit their careers. It could also, of course, provide the Armed Forces with ready-trained personnel.

I have raised this idea with governments in the past, and have always been told that it would be too costly. I maintain, however, that this Government cannot afford not to introduce such a scheme.

Michael Chamberlain

King’s Lynn, Norfolk

Starmer’s excuses

SIR – Liz Kendall, the Science Secretary, has insisted that, had Sir Keir Starmer been aware that Lord Mandelson had failed the vetting to become Britain’s ambassador to the United States, he would have blocked the appointment (telegraph.co.uk, April 19).

I await the Prime Minister’s explanation, when he addresses the House of Commons, as to why he did not demand to know the outcome of the process, given that this was a high-profile appointment of someone with known connections to Jeffrey Epstein.

John Crosthwaite-Eyre

Lyndhurst, Hampshire

SIR – It appears that Sir Keir Starmer’s last line of defence as to why he didn’t know about the vetting outcome for Peter Mandelson may be that Sir Olly Robbins was precluded by Civil Service regulations from telling him (report, April 18). In which case, may this incredulous member of the public ask: for what reason was the vetting undertaken?

Michael Staples

Seaford, East Sussex

SIR – The Prime Minister’s excuses remind me of my law lecturer’s description of constructive notice: “the notice that you should have had had you asked the question, but you did not ask the question because you did not want to know what the answer would be”.

T W Wood

Colchester, Essex

SIR – The fiasco over Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US raises a much larger question: what other important decisions may have been made by unelected civil servants without reference to the Government?

Tim Cantor

Tunbridge Wells, Kent

SIR– It seems inevitable that Sir Keir Starmer will ultimately be forced to resign over this saga. I really hope that it does not happen, however – for one reason only. He could well be replaced by Angela Rayner.

Terry Lloyd

Darley Abbey, Derbyshire