Ben Wallace said he is facing an "uphill battle" with Jeremy Hunt as he tries to secure extra funding at the Budget next month to "insulate" the Ministry of Defence from soaring inflation. 

The Defence Secretary said he will have "lots of meetings with the Chancellor" between now and March 15 and that he has not "hidden the fact that we suffer from inflation pressures" at a time of rising global threat. 

Asked how much money the MOD needs to "standstill", Mr Wallace told Sky News: "I have been in this game long enough, I think I have been a minister for god knows how many years, but it is always an uphill battle with the Treasury no matter what department you’re in. 

"It’s the right thing that a secretary of state will argue for an increase to meet their priorities and of course between now and the Budget I have lots of time and lots of meetings with the Chancellor to make sure that we try and come to a deal on it.

"I haven’t hidden the fact that we suffer from inflation pressures, as does departments with big capital spending, that’s that spending on hardware and infrastructure because of course that is where inflation goes to. 

"But we’ll see. I am not going to conduct the negotiations in public but obviously we are going to try and make our way through this so that between now and the next spending review which is in two years’ time we can insulate defence from many of those pressures."

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