UK Defence Spending Insufficient Former Army Chief Warns

The government’s long-delayed blueprint for how it will fund Britain’s armed forces is not enough to keep the country safe, according to a former army chief.

Keir Starmer will unveil the Defence Investment Plan (DIP) on Tuesday in one of his last major acts before he resigns as prime minister.

It is expected to contain an extra £15 billion for the armed forces over the next four years – £1.5bn more than former defence secretary John Healey was given before he dramatically resigned earlier this month.

But it is well short of the £28bn defence chiefs say is needed.

Crucially, the DIP will also not say how the UK plans to spend 3% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence by 2030, or hit Nato’s target of 3.5% by 2035.

General Sir Richard Barrons, who last year co-authored the government’s Strategic Defence Review, told Radio 4′s Today programme that ministers urgently needed to find more cash.

The former Commander of Joint Forces Command said: “In oder to defend the UK sufficiently well, sufficiently quickly, more has to be done sooner and that requires more money than is currently on the table.

“If the demand was for £28bn over the first four years and the settlement might be around £15bn over four years, that means either some things are not going to be bought or will be delayed, and it will mean that some forms of activity like training and infrastructure maintenance and logistics, things that cost real cash, will be done less well or perhaps not even done at all.”

He added: “The good news is that today’s British armed forces know perfectly well what they have to do, they understand this transformation, and all three services have really very good models for what they need to do.

“Their challenge is that in order to do it well enough and fast enough, they’ll need more money sooner.

“And what they’re going to see in the DIP today is a struggle, not just for the first four years, but until the government can articulate how the UK gets to spend 3.5% of GDP … by 2035.

“Until that trajectory is clear we don’t have a four-year slowdown, we have a 10-year slowdown.”

Barrons said the UK was also lagging well behind other European countries.

“If you look at most of our European allies in Nato, they are spending more money much faster on revitalising and beginning to transform their armed forces, and they’re looking at the UK, who were once an exemplar of a European nation in Nato, and we’re now about halfway down the spending table in Nato.”

He added: “We’re not keeping up with our allies, we’re certainly not keeping up with our enemies, and we know that the US is not going to come and save European security in the face of a Russian threat.

“So until we come to terms with the fact that we have to find more money for defence, and yes it will be at the expense of other things we like more, we are simply not going to be ready to defend this country properly.”

But speaking ahead of the DIP’s publication, Starmer said: “This game-changing investment will strengthen our armed forces on land, at sea and in the air, ensuring our servicemen and women have the cutting-edge capabilities they need to deter evolving threats and keep the British people safe.

“At the same time, we are backing British innovation, British industry and British jobs and delivering opportunity to every corner of the country.

“Today’s defence investment plan will help drive growth across the UK, giving our industrial base the confidence, certainty and support it needs to develop and scale the technologies that will keep our country safe and secure long into the future.”

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