MINISTER THREATENS TO QUIT IN NEW BLOW TO TRUSS

>> PM FIGHTS ON AFTER APOLOGISING FOR 'MISTAKES' >> ROW BREAKS OUT OVER HUNT'S SPENDING CUTS

- Nicholas Cecil, Rachael Burford and David Bond

A DEFENCE minister threatened to quit live on air today over spending cuts, piling more pressure on Liz Truss as she fought to remain Prime Minister.

In a sign of the tension at the heart of government, armed forces minister James Heappey said he would resign if Ms Truss reneged on a pledge to raise defence spending to three per cent of GDP by 2030.

Mr Heappey was not seeking to undermine the Prime Minister as he praised her "courage" and "leadership" for axing most of the mini-budget in an unprecedented blizzard of U-turns on tax and the energy bills support package.

But he also said she could not afford to make "any more mistakes" as she seeks to remain in No10. His resignation threat, which highlighted Ms Truss's weakened political authority, also laid bare the fraught decisions facing her and new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt over spending cuts and tax rises to plug a black hole of tens of billions of pounds in the public finances in the middle of a worsening cost of-living crisis. Mr Hunt, who has said that "nothing is off the table", addressed Cabinet this morning over the "difficult decisions" on spending cuts.

A Treasury source said: "Health and defence won't be exempt from finding savings. No department will be ringfenced. That message will be delivered to the Cabinet." The stark warning came despite waiting lists in the NHS rising above seven million, a crisis in social care, schools struggling to deal with the aftermath of Covid, a backlog of cases in the courts and soaring inflation eating into Whitehall budgets, as well as pensions.