Gordon Brown confesses: I was wrong to say defence cash was rising

Gordon Brown was today forced into an embarrassing climbdown over evidence he gave to the Iraq inquiry.

After being challenged by a Tory backbencher, the Prime Minister admitted in the Commons that claims he had made over defence spending rising were wrong.

He had told Sir John Chilcot's panel this month that the defence budget was "rising in real terms every year".

But later House of Commons figures showed this was not the case. Asked at Question Time whether he would correct the record, Mr Brown said: "Yes. I am already writing to Sir John Chilcot about this issue.

"Because of operational fluctuations in the way the money is spent, expenditure has risen in cash terms every year, in real terms it is 12 per cent higher, but I do accept that in one or two years defence expenditure did not rise in real terms."

Tory leader David Cameron seized on the surprise confession. "In three years of asking the Prime Minister questions, I do not think I have ever heard him make a correction or a retraction," he said. Downing Street sources stressed that as Chancellor, Mr Brown had always budgeted for a real-terms rise in the defence budget.

But variations in operational costs and underspends led to overall defence expenditure not increasing in real terms in 1997-98, when Labour was seeking to stick to the Major administration spending plans, and in 1999-2000, 2004-05 and 2006-07.

Mr Brown had rejected claims that as Chancellor he starved the military of the funds it needed.

"The Iraqi expenditure was being met, but at the same time the defence budget was rising in real terms every year," he told the inquiry.

Lord Boyce, head of the armed forces during the 2003 Iraq invasion accused him of being "disingenuous" in saying that he provided military chiefs with everything for which they asked.

Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox said: "This is a humiliating climbdown for Gordon Brown as his attempt to rewrite history has failed and his fantasy figures have been exposed.

"He has made repeated and fundamentally false claims, misleading Parliament, the public and worst of all the Armed Forces and their families."