Britain’s armed forces would “l(fā)ast about five days” if there was a war, a senior Conservative MP has claimed, as pressure increases on the chancellor to boost defence spending in next month’s Budget.Tobias Ellwood, Tory chair of the Commons defence committee, told the Financial Times that high inflation and the cost of replacing equipment sent to Ukraine had created “a really grim picture” and left military supplies seriously depleted.

Jeremy Hunt has vowed to consider the case for more military spending in his Budget in response to an update of the government’s 2021 foreign and defence policy, expected in the coming weeks.

The revamping of the so-called “Integrated Review” by John Bew, a historian and member of the Number 10 policy unit, will take account of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The original document was billed as a “tilt to the Indo-Pacific”.