The House | The triple lock should be part of conversation to raise defending spending

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President Herbert Hoover said: “Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.”

Speaking at a defence conference in Madrid recently, I set out my reasons for why I think the UK is already a front-line nation in a conflict with Russia and why we must do a better job of speaking with the public to help them understand the nature of that conflict and what we must do to prepare for it.

One question put to me has been playing on my mind: Why should young people fight, risking their lives, for older people who have created a system where wealth and power are concentrated in the upper age brackets? After all, young people have endured four ‘once in a generation’ crises and do not have the advantages and opportunities enjoyed by previous generations, and yet are often looked down on with disdain.

In other words, if there is to be a true whole of society approach to defence, and younger people could be expected to die, what are older people willing to sacrifice?

This question is even more pertinent when you consider experience in Ukraine suggests the major looming conflict is one where the technology, data, computing and the creative skills of young people will be vital to success on the battlefield. Drone warfare, rapid software adaptation, remote control munitions, complex and high-tech data management of receptors and information, and the increased use of AI. War is, indeed, a young person’s game.

Not increasing defence and security spending is not an option, but we must be creative in finding routes to do so. The government must balance the realities of the UK’s fiscal position, which limits the potential to borrow, and the truth that we cannot ask individuals or businesses to fund the kind of investment needed on their own via additional taxes.  

Those realities have led to a discussion in the UK focussed on the need to cut public expenditure and transfer that to defence. Specifically, the debate has almost immediately been framed by what, in my view, is a false choice of welfare or defence, that we should take from those who have least, most of them younger.  

History teaches us that armies don’t win wars, economies do, and poverty harms our economy by reducing the numbers for a capable workforce as well as fighting soldiers.

If ‘tough’ choices are needed, then we must not duck from the most difficult

One of the lessons of the build-up to World War I, and one of the justifications used by David Lloyd George for his ‘war budget’ of 1909, was that the health of the nation was not sufficient to fight and win the looming war. Similarly, the health of the nation was a key concern in the build-up to World War 2. This is a lesson we will have been shown to have forgotten if we attack welfare in the false belief that such a choice will help us win the next war.

To deter Russia and our other adversaries, we must show we are serious about building a population, economy and armed forces that can deter and resist their aggression. It is widely said that Europe wasted the peace dividend. If that is the case, then some of the conversation now, and any package of measures proposed, must include asking those people who benefited financially from peace to sacrifice a portion of that to pay for the future security of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

If that means reforming, not abolishing, sacred cows such as the pensions triple lock while still protecting pensioners living in poverty, or accessing wealth built up in housing or other assets accumulated during these years of peace, then surely that is a sacrifice worth it for our future freedom?

The cost of reaching the required 3 per cent of GDP on defence would be an estimated £17.3bn by 2029-2030. Reinstating the two-child cap, as has been proposed by the Conservatives, would only raise £3bn a year by the same point, barely touching the sides of what is needed, while harming people in poverty and making our country less prepared for war. 

Meanwhile, the OBR estimates that in 2029-30, the pension triple lock will cost upwards of £15bn more per year than estimated when it was established. If ‘tough’ choices are needed, then we must not duck from the most difficult.

I do not think this whole amount could or should be realised. We must still look after pensioners and ensure fair rises in the state pension, but at the very least, these choices must be part of a conversation.

If they are not, if we continue with a dichotomy of ‘defence or welfare’, not only will we fail to build a society that can deter and defeat our enemies, but we risk that the people we need to help us win will be unwilling to fight at all.

Graeme Downie is the Labour MP for Dunfermline & Dollar