PRIME Minister Gordon Brown is to clarify his evidence to the Iraq Inquiry after a House of Commons question from Banbury MP Tony Baldry yesterday.

Mr Brown told Sir John Chilcot’s panel when he appeared before it earlier this month that the defence budget was “rising in real terms every year”.

But later House of Commons library figures showed this was not the case.

Mr Brown conceded he had been wrong over the real-terms rise when questioned by Mr Baldry, who said the figures showed the PM had been “simply incorrect”.

And asked whether he would correct the record, Mr Brown said: “Yes. I am already writing to Sir John Chilcot about this issue.

“Because of operational fluctuations in the way the money is spent, expenditure has risen in cash terms every year, in real terms it is 12 per cent higher, but I do accept that in one or two years, defence expenditure did not rise in real terms.”

Mr Brown made the assertion to the inquiry as he rejected accusations that as Chancellor he starved the military of funding.

Conservative leader and Witney MP David Cameron said: “In three years of asking the Prime Minister questions, I do not think I have ever heard him make a correction or a retraction.”