How laser weapons will be fast-tracked for UK warships in controversial Spring Statement

Britain will rush ahead with fitting laser weapons on to warships as part of an additional £2.2 billion for defence but at the cost of the overseas aid budget, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce on Wednesday. In an increasingly unstable world, Ms Reeves will make a fiscal statement that will include budget cuts while also announcing further investment in the country's defences. The Treasury disclosed that some of the extra military funding will come from the overseas development budget that was last month slashed from 0.5 to 0.3 per cent of GDP. But former Conservative development secretary Andrew Mitchell said that he was 'horrified' at the aid cuts and warned of a 'belt of terrorism' that could stretch across sub-Sahara Africa as a result. However, the government will argue that those harsh cuts are necessary to ensure that Britain can defend itself from the growing Russian threat and global conflict. Part of Ms Reeves' proposed 'decade of national renewal' for Britain will be putting advanced weaponry in the hands of its military because the country had to 'move quickly in a changing world', she will say. The money will be invested in advanced technologies so that Britain's armed forces 'have the tools they need to compete and win in modern warfare', the Treasury said. That included a guaranteed investment to fit Royal Navy warships with 'directed energy weapons' by 2027. The lasers can allegedly hit a £1 coin from one kilometre away and take down drones at a range of 5km. 'Our task is to secure Britain's future in a world that is changing before our eyes,' Ms Reeves will say. 'But we have to move quickly in a changing word and that starts with investment.' The military's money comes from the Treasury reserve and the cuts to the Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) budget, so will not require additional borrowing maintaining 'the Chancellor's ironclad fiscal rule', her department said. But that raid on the overseas aid was described as a 'such an error of judgment', by Mr Mitchell, with the cuts demonstrating the government had a 'misunderstanding of the huge national interest benefit of overseas development'. Alongside massive reductions in US Agency for International Development, Britain's cut will mean that the allies 'vacate the territory' which could be replaced by Russians or Chinese but also terror groups. It could generate a 'belt of misery' stretching from 'the terrible things that have been happening in northern Nigeria' through the Central African Republic, Mali, across to Somalia and even Yemen, Mr Mitchell told the International Development Committee. 'A belt of misery where there are four or five different terrorist movements in operation,' he warned. 'This whole thing will be a rich recruiting ground for terrorism.' The government had said it would wait for two years before introducing the overseas aid reduction, something Mr Mitchell stated was a 'harsh lesson' learnt from when the Conservatives immediately introduced the first cut from 0.7 per cent three years ago. But it appeared from the Treasury briefing that the defence money would be taken immediately. Mr Mitchell lamented that when Britain had stuck to the 0.7 per cent of GDP for ODA money, an internationally agreed figure, that made it a 'development superpower', assisting in 'the fastest decline in international poverty in human history' that lasted from 1990 to 2020. One way of lessening the blow would be to find 'multipliers for money', Mr Mitchell suggested. 'If, for example, we and the UAE or the Saudis, agree together to pursue tackling starvation in Somalia and we each put in $25 million then we are getting two for one for our taxpayers. There's quite a lot of that sort of thing that we should be doing.'

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