Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email<\/p>\n
Grant Shapps was urged to be willing to defy his \u201cmate\u201d Rishi Sunak and push for greater military spending after he was revealed as the surprise replacement for\u00a0Ben Wallace as defence secretary.<\/p>\n
Military chiefs and MPs questioned the appointment during a mini-reshuffle on Thursday \u2013 saying they feared Mr Shapps was an inexperienced \u201cyes man\u201d who had been given the job to avoid \u201crocking the boat\u201d at pre-election budgets.<\/p>\n
Claire\u00a0Coutinho \u2013 the junior education minister and Sunak loyalist \u2013 will take over from Mr Shapps energy secretary. Another Sunak ally from the 2019 intake, David Johnston, takes up her old job at the education department.<\/p>\n
Mr Shapps takes up his fifth cabinet job in less than a year, having assumed a series of jobs in the whirlwind of\u00a0Boris Johnson\u2019s final months and Liz Truss\u2019s short-lived spell at No 10.<\/p>\n
Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of the Armed Forces, expressed his concern that he had been given the job to \u201csupport\u201d Mr Sunak rather than \u201cmake the case\u201d for defence spending.<\/p>\n
Lord Dannatt told Sky News: \u201cWill he really understand and make the case for defence … or will he be more political and support the prime minister for party political purposes? Ben Wallace was arguing for [defence investment]. Is that discussion going to continue? Or will Grant Shapps choose to go quietly?\u201d <\/p>\n
Sir Richard also said Mr Shapps knows \u201cvery little about defence\u201d and it will take him \u201cquite some time to get up to speed\u201d, saying there was a risk that the debate on resources for defence now \u201cstagnates\u201d.<\/p>\n
Admiral Lord West \u2013 the former chief of UK naval staff \u2013 told\u00a0The Independent\u00a0he feared Mr Sunak had put his \u201cgreat mate\u201d Mr Shapps in the job not to \u201crock the boat\u201d at pre-election budgets.<\/p>\n
The former defence minister said: \u201cIt\u2019s a surprising appointment. He\u2019s obviously great mates with Sunak. I fear he is putting him in so he will not create any waves by demanding extra money for defence, which is very much needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lord West added: \u201cI think it was designed to get someone who won\u2019t rock the boat or upset the apple cart, particularly with an election coming next year. Will Grant Shapps fight that corner? I have my doubts about that. He doesn\u2019t have a particularly brilliant background in defence. That\u2019s my worry.\u201d <\/p>\n
Grant Shapps made a visit to a Ukrainian power station last week <\/p>\n
(PA Media)<\/p>\n
Tory MP Mark\u00a0Francois \u2013 a former armed forces minister \u2013 has said many people at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) did not want Mr Shapps to get the job.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany people in the building wanted James [Heappey] to get the job \u2013 he hasn\u2019t,\u201d Mr Francois told GB News. He added: \u201cGrant Shapps is a bright bloke, but he\u2019s going to have to come up with the speed very, very quickly \u2026 this is going to be a very steep learning curve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Military figures in government have also raised eyebrows. One officer, currently in Whitehall who had served with Nato, said: \u201cWe are now in one the most dangerous period in decades with the Ukraine war and also at a time the forces having to cope with more challenges with less money.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a time to have someone in charge of the department with knowledge of defence to deal with complex issues. Instead we\u2019ve got someone who\u2019ll need to \u2018learn on the job\u2019, and that\u2019s worrying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior Tory MP Julian Lewis, former chair of the defence select committee, has encouraged Mr Shapps to push the Treasury for as much money as possible to reverse a relative decline in spending on the military.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefence expenditure under successive governments decline in comparison with other priorities, Mr Lewis told\u00a0The Independent. \u201cThe new defence secretary should use all his powers of persuasion to build on the foundations laid by Ben Wallace in light of the considerable threats we face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant Shapps arriving at No 10 on Thursday to get new job <\/p>\n
(Stefan Rousseau\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n
Mr\u00a0Wallace\u00a0revealed last month he wanted to quit Westminster and would resign at the next reshuffle. He officially stepped down on Thursday \u2013 saying he had put the MoD \u201cback on the path to being world class\u201d.<\/p>\n
The outgoing defence chief had a parting message for Mr Sunak on defence spending. \u201cI know you agree with me that we must not return to the days where defence was viewed as a discretionary spend by government and savings were achieved by hollowing out,\u201d he said in his letter.<\/p>\n
Despite Armed Forces minister James Heappey and Treasury minister John Glen being favourites for the job, Mr Shapps began to be linked with the role after making a trip to Ukraine last week.<\/p>\n
The Sunak ally said that he was \u201chonoured\u201d to succeed Mr Wallace and paid tribute to the \u201cenormous contribution\u201d he had made to UK\u2019s security over the past four years in the job.<\/p>\n
Mr Shapps also said he was \u201clooking forward to working with the brave men and women of our Armed Forces\u201d and \u201ccontinuing the UK\u2019s support for Ukraine in their fight against Putin\u2019s barbaric invasion\u201d.<\/p>\n
Rishi Sunak thanked Ben Wallace for his four years of service in the job <\/p>\n
(PA Archive)<\/p>\n
Labour\u2019s shadow defence secretary John Healey congratulated Mr Shapps. \u201cBut after 13 years of Tory defence failures, a change at the top will not change this record.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Liberal Democrats said Mr Sunak had appointed a \u201cyes man\u201d in a crucial role. The party\u2019s defence spokesperson Richard Foord said: \u201cThis is Shapps\u2019 fifth cabinet role in less than a year. The Conservative government merry-go-round has to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Sunak has given a major promotion to Ms Coutinho \u2013 a former special adviser at the Treasury when he was there \u2013 by appointing her energy secretary while the West is still reeling for the price shock caused by Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Mr Wallace was seen as a leading leadership contender, regularly topping the ConservativeHome surveys of most popular ministers among the party\u2019s grassroots. He ruled himself out of the running for the leadership last year despite being a frontrunner in the race to replace Mr Johnson.<\/p>\n
Mr Johnson paid tribute to the outgoing defence secretary, calling him a \u201cfine defence secretary\u201d and describing Mr Shapps\u00a0as \u201can excellent choice to succeed him\u201d. Mr Sunak praised Mr\u00a0Wallace in a reply letter, telling him he leaves office with \u201cthanks and respect\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email Grant Shapps was urged to be willing to defy his \u201cmate\u201d Rishi Sunak and push for greater military spending after he was revealed as the surprise replacement for\u00a0Ben Wallace as defence secretary. Military chiefs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n