Exclusive: Former defence secretary calls for the size of the Army to rise to 100,000

A former defence secretary has said he believes the size of the British Army needs to rise to a minimum of 100,000.

Sir Gavin Williamson, who was in the post from November 2017 to May 2019, also told Forces News he wants to see defence spending rise to 3% of GDP.

"Everything has changed so incredibly rapidly and we are going to be having to see an expansion of not just our Army, but our Navy and our Air Force," he said.

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"You look at some of our vulnerabilities, whether it's undersea cables, Russia's undersea capabilities, these have all got to be addressed.

"We have to see an expansion in what our Armed Forces are capable of doing in terms of equipment, but also in terms of personnel."

Sir Gavin was speaking ahead of the Prime Minister's surprise announcement that defence spending would rise to 2.5% from 2027.

No details of how that extra money will be spent have been released.

When asked what the money would be spent on, Veterans Minister Al Carns told BFBS Forces News that would be decided by the ongoing Strategic Defence Review.

"That Strategic Defence Review will really clearly work out how we're going to fight, what we need to fight it and then the investment opportunities that we need to make to make sure our Armed Forces are equipped to fight the next war," he said.

"Taking a lot of those lessons from Ukraine, in particular to ensure that we act upon those lessons and equip the armed forces correctly.”

When pressed on waiting for the detail he said we would have to "wait until the spring".

"There's no point going off half-cocked and giving early announcements," he said.

The former Royal Marines officer said he was not going to get drawn into specifics when asked if the size of the Armed Forces would increase.

But he did say spending on defence would "absolutely be an engine for growth".

As of April 2024, there were 75,325 members of the Army, excluding Gurkhas and volunteers, according to the latest MOD figures.

That is down from 79,330 in October 2019.