Ben Wallace on Thursday dismissed criticism from the veterans’ minister in a public bust-up over military funding.
The Defence Secretary described Johnny Mercer as a “junior minister” who “luckily doesn’t have to run a budget”. He added that as Defence Secretary he runs “a department of 224,000 people”, while Mr Mercer has “got 12 people in the office”.
It follows Mr Mercer claiming it was “not credible” for Mr Wallace to say Britain’s armed forces had been “hollowed out” as he seeks a substantial increase in funding allocated to his department.
Mr Wallace told LBC: “Johnny is a junior minister, and Johnny luckily doesn’t have to run the budget. I have a defence budget that has to deal, like all the other budgets, with inflation, with changes to threat, and I have to just deal with that. And that’s my job.”
Asked if Mr Mercer, whose role sits within the Cabinet Office rather than the Ministry of Defence, was being naive, Mr Wallace said: “No. I just think, his experience is not... he’s not the Secretary of State.” Mr Wallace is believed to be pressing the Chancellor for an £8 billion to £11 billion increase in defence spending as the war in Ukraine rages on.
During a debate last month in the Commons, he said he was “happy to say that we have been hollowed out and underfunded”.
Days later, he told a press conference in Portsmouth that a “growing proportion” of Government spending would need to go towards keeping the country safe, in a message that was read as being directed at Jeremy Hunt ahead of the Budget on March 15.
Mr Mercer yesterday told LBC: “Ben is engaged in a lobbying effort for his department, as you would expect him to be... It’s obviously not credible to say that the money has been taken out of defence.”
Mr Mercer’s wife Felicity on Thursday accused the Defence Secretary of showing “disdain” for her husband.
“Wow,” she tweeted. “The disdain from Ben Wallace for Johnny Mercer and his office for veterans affairs really is something else... you may start to realise why care for veterans is such a daily battle.”
