LONDON, April 28. /TASS/. Former NATO Secretary General George Robertson (1999-2003) called on the British government to prioritize defense spending over the welfare budget.

"'Guns vs butter', or defense versus welfare, is not a good argument to make. The responsibility of government is the defense and safety of its population, and that must come first, then other items of public expenditure come later," Robertson said at a meeting of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy of the UK Parliament.

"It would be horrible to think it would take an actual crisis, an actual attack on the United Kingdom before we woke up to the kind of threats that are facing us," The Times quoted the former British defense secretary (1997-1999) in Tony Blair’s government as saying. "There will be no butter if we have no guns. It’s as simple as that," Robertson stated, adding that the UK’s welfare budget was five times larger than defense spending. "Are we certain that this is the right priority?" he said.

"If you’ve got a war, it costs a lot of money. We finished paying for the Second World War in 2016. You know that’s a war that we won. So it's a much more expensive proposition than deterrence is," Robertson noted. He was one of the authors of the 114-page defense review presented last summer, which outlined the main threats and recommendations for improving the combat readiness of the UK Armed Forces.

Two weeks ago, Robertson said the British leadership was not paying enough attention to defense issues, limiting itself to empty statements and refusing to invest in rearmament.