GENERAL Sir Nick Carter has admitted a lack of clarity over the armed forces budget is a “challenge” as he predicted that robots will be fighting for the UK under future reforms.

The Chief of the Defence Staff said he understood the Treasury’s decision to produce only a one-year Spending Review later this month given the economic pressure caused by coronavirus but stated it would impact on modernising the country’s defences.

Military chiefs had been expecting a three-year plan as part of the integrated defence and foreign policy review, which it is claimed the Prime Minister’s most senior aide Dominic Cummings is playing a major role in, but the Chancellor was forced to put the spending announcement on hold.

Ex-first sea lord Lord West of Spithead last week called Rishi Sunak’s decision “very damaging to defence”.

Sir Nick, asked about the effect the Spending Review decision could have on BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show, said: “I think the challenge for us is the threat is evolving the whole time, the threat is modernising in certain quarters and we need to modernise as well, so for us it is a challenge.”

He said no decisions had been made when asked whether he expected a smaller army to be the recommendation of the review.

Offering a glimpse of the future of British military protection, the general said he expected more robots to be on the battlefield in future.

“If I projected forward another 10 years, I think we should be in no doubt that warfare will look different, there will be robots on our battlefield in future – there already are today,” he added.

“Of course, that might change the manpower mix. I also think that reserves are very important as Covid has demonstrated, so I suspect it will be a very different mix of human beings and, for that matter, machines than it is today.”

He predicted tanks would still be needed over the next 10 years to “engage the enemy at close quarters” amid rumours they are to be scrapped.

“Now that may change over the next ten to 15 to 20 years, but certainly for the next ten years it would be surprising if that wasn’t the way in which warfare continued to be fought,” Sir Nick added.