LAST week, the government published the long-delayed Defence Investment Plan, which increases military spending by a further £15 billion, with military spending planned to rise even more to nearly £80 billion per year by 2029. This will be at the expense of other much-needed projects.

Keir Starmer said that the government will be spending £64 billion on nuclear weapons over the next four years. This is 20% of our defence spending. It’s enough money to build 64 brand new hospitals or 18 massive offshore wind farms, which would make us much more self-reliant.

Labour's nuclear priorities are totally wrong. I acknowledge the threat of Russia, but what use are nuclear weapons against them?

Relying on nuclear weapons drags the world closer towards a nuclear conflict. Should they ever be used, they won’t just kill millions, if not billions, of innocent people, but they would throw so much ash up into the atmosphere that it would lead to a nuclear winter, where the sun is blocked out.

This would mean ecocide as well as genocide, and it would become impossible to grow food.

The move to using drones in warfare is deeply concerning. In Gaza, Israel has programmed drones to broadcast the sound of Palestinian babies crying or children shouting “I want my mother”.

Of course, this brings out concerned residents, looking for the child, at which point the drone or the soldiers shoot them.

Defence spending should be directed to defence, not to weapons of mass destruction.

What we need are systems that can protect us from drone warfare, protect us from cyber attacks, and protect our undersea cables. Nuclear weapons are no good for any of this.

Meanwhile, our greatest security threat is the climate crisis. We need our forces ready to set up emergency flood barriers, rescue flood victims, fight wildfires and support the NHS when heatwaves overwhelm it.

Governments' priority should be urgently reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and preparing our nation to cope with the more extreme weather just around the corner.

Graham Wroe

Sheffield