Wes Streeting delivers his scathing take on 'outdated' military spending
The former Health Secretary criticised the Prime Minister's attempts to increase defence spending
Wes Streeting has delivered a damning attack on the UK's military defence spending and claimed the government is reluctant to scrap some of its funding programmes to avoid "professional blushes".
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The former Health Secretary told LBC that his party need to focus on different priorities in its defence budgets and said ministers need to "bang some heads together".
Speaking to Tonight with Andrew Marr, Mr Streeting said: "The Ministry of Defence is famous for being bad at procurement.
"For having inter-service rivalry, vested interests, and as Al Carns said in his interviews, there are a whole load of programmes we're currently funding in defence not because we think they're the right programmes but because scrapping them would create professional blushes.
Read more: MoD in revolt: Healey and Carns quit over Starmer's military spending plan as PM faces new crisis
"Well, tough. I do think that the investment has to be matched with modernisation."
Criticising Sir Keir Starmer, he added: "I'm concerned that what we've seen reported is that the Prime Minister's asked for a blanket 1% across all government departments.
"Now, that doesn't show me a Prime Minister making choices. That's a Prime Minister avoiding them and just making it a simple haircut rather than genuinely looking and prioritising across government."
He added: "We're going to have to bang some heads together, even if they're military heads sometimes."
The comments came just moments after it emerged that a Russian warship fired warning shots at a British yacht in the English Channel.
The incident, at around 11.40am on Tuesday, is understood to have involved the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich in the sea between the Isle of Wight and Normandy.
A British-flagged 40ft sailing yacht, reportedly on a recreational voyage, alerted the coast guard that it was fired upon after it sailed near the Admiral Grigorovich.
Last week, Al Carns resigned from his post as armed forces minister which also followed the departure of Defence Secretary John Healey.
Mr Carns told LBC that he watched on as the defence secretary remained locked in a standoff with Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who he accused of refusing to properly fund defence.
The investment plan, which is due to be unveiled soon, is slated to improve Britain's defence against emerging threats.
The incident on Tuesday is understood to have involved the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich about 20 nautical miles south of the Isle of Wight, outside the UK’s territorial waters.
There were no injuries and the yacht received no damage in the incident on Tuesday.The crew of the yacht claimed the warning shots were fired at a distance of approximately 500 yards (457 metres).
Russian warships passing through the English Channel are routinely shadowed by the Royal Navy, with offshore patrol vessel HMS Mersey monitoring the Admiral Grigorovich at the time of the incident.
But asked whether Ms Reeves is to blame for the lack of MoD funding, Mr Streeting said: "I certainly don't think in the middle of all of this row about the Defence Investment Plan and other things, that it's very easy people scapegoat the Chancellor, I don't think that's fair."
Onn separate matters, Mr Streeting told Andrew he "did not want to see the Prime Minister humiliated" by losing a potential leadership election and confirmed he will launch his own leadership contest regardless of the result in Makerfield's by-election on Thursday.