Ben Wallace has revealed he is close to agreeing an increased funding package for the Minister of Defence at next month's Budget. 

The Defence Secretary said he is "pretty confident that we will get somewhere" and "we are not very far away".

He told Times Radio: "Boris Johnson and when Rishi Sunak was the chancellor, gave us a record defence settlement and that was a recognition that for 30 years defence had been hollowed out, after the Cold War the peace dividend kept being taken beyond effectively what the ambitions were and so they both recognised that and that is why they wanted to invest in defence. 

"And in the autumn statement both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said they recognised defence needed more money. So I think that is an important position and I am pretty confident that we will get somewhere and I think that is good news for us. 

"The amounts are designed really to do a number of things, one is mainly to make sure that the threats that have emerged since the defence command paper back in 2020 that we can find some funding to meet that and we are not very far away I don’t think and I think I am pretty confident, I certainly know that the Prime Minister gets it. 

"But he has got to balance the economy, we have got to get the economy going and he knows that and he is doing a great job on that so we will see where we get to."