Yesterday Rishi Sunak announced a plan to substantially increase UK defence spending, up to 2.5% of GDP by 2030. This announcement moves the Tory position from an aspiration to achieve this “when economic circumstances allow” to a firm plan with actual budget cash numbers from this year through to 2030.
The timing is interesting – it is less than two months since the Government passed its Spring Budget without any attempt to fund this aspiration, but since then two things have happened. One is that Keir Starmer moved Labour’s policy position to match the unfunded “aspiration”, and (perhaps more importantly) the Daily Mail ran a sustained campaign demanding a defence spending increase.
Beyond the spin and hyperbole of the speech and press release, the Government has also issued a supporting document with more detail, available here and the simultaneous release of this slick and glossy document indicates the Government has been working on this for a while.
In many respects, this is a sensible plan which actually aligns quite closely with the Lib Dem policy “Liberal Values in a Dangerous World” adopted at this year’s Spring Conference, including investing in people to tackle the recruitment and retention crisis within the Armed Forces and civilian MOD, providing a long term procurement pipeline to give industry confidence to invest in capacity and R&D, and reiterating the importance of alliances.
There are a couple of important things currently missing from the Government’s plans however. One is that the Government’s announcements so far do not commit to reverse the current cuts to the Armed Forces, for example in the size of the Army or the Typhoon fighter fleet. These are crucial issues, as the only way the UK could have more capacity available to fight a big war in the next 2-3 years is to reverse planned cuts now.
The other, somewhat fundamental issue is that they haven’t yet said how this will be paid for, beyond a statement that “it will be fully funded with no increase in borrowing or debt”. It was already clear that under the tax and spending plans as they existed before this announcement, deep cuts would be required to unprotected Whitehall budgets to balance the books to the Government’s own fiscal rules. For context, the cost of increasing the defence budget to 2.5% of GDP straight away is almost exactly the same as the cost to the Exchequer of the two recent rounds of National Insurance rate cuts implemented by Jeremy Hunt.
I’m sure many of you are already cynically thinking “so what, they won’t be around to implement this”, but it clearly (by design) puts pressure on opposition parties to match this commitment or be accused of wanting to “cut UK defence spending”, so a response will be required and on past form Labour might be expected to match this as they have with everything else. The Lib Dems won’t escape questions either. There is also a question about election timing, since if the Tories go for the expected Autumn General Election they will have an Autumn Budget Statement that will require scrutiny of their tax and spending plans by the OBR. A summer election would avoid this…
I’ve presented the case for increased defence spending previously on Lib Dem Voice – and remain convinced that this is necessary in the face of growing threats from Russia, China and Iran, but some honesty is required about how it will be paid for. I trust our parliamentarians will be pressuring the Government to explain how their plans will be funded, and also to commit to reversing the cuts to the Army per our current policy position.
* Nick Baird is a Lib Dem activist and Chair of the Liberal Democrats in Cheltenham.
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29 Comments
We should respond by pointing out that it is meaningless.
2,5% by 2030, ie 6 Years into the Labour Government.
Sunak could increase Defence spending Now but this announcement doesn’t do that.
This isn’t Policy, its yet another attempt to embarrass Labour.
Might it be that to have appropriate military spending it is necessary to have a reliable, dynamic economy?
Might the neoliberal economics/austerity policies of and since the Thatcher era have made our economy less than dynamic and reliable?
Might a change in the prevailing socio-economic policies aid our security?
What might be the comparative numbers of China involved armed conflicts and U S A involved conflicts?
Why do we waste “military” money on renting a malfunctioning nuclear weapon set up from the U S A, whose permission we need to use?
PS
I forgot to mention that The Government already made this announcement in 2022 – did that lead to any noticeable increase in actual Defence spending ?
This is Sunak,s “Relaunch” Week, ignore it.
@Paul Barker – the previous announcement was an aspiration, “when finances allow”. This announcement puts a timetable with budgets increasing gradually to the 2.5% GDP target by 2030, but it does (sort of) start now. I say “sort of” because the Government is including military aid to Ukraine in the numbers, so the recently announced extra £500m for Ukraine this year is being counted.
We should be supportive of increased defence spending.
The problem is, however, that politicians have groomed several generations to believe that they can aspire to things without, in essence, having to pay for them. Just look at how local taxes have been capped whilst the commitments and responsibilities have been increased. Then the Conservatives talk about cutting taxes as if that is the only virtue and an end in itself.
If significant tranches of the population don’t perceive the advantages (to them) of living in what is called a democracy, then we could be faced with a reaction similar to that experienced during Brexit. People will begrudge paying for something that they don’t believe is contributing to their wellbeing.
So it is important that we set out clearly and loudly why we believe in democracy and also the type of society we want to see. Any fools can come up with policy promises – but putting forward a balanced agenda for a caring, democratic society is something wholly different.
We cannot oppose it.
Just make sure there are no compensatory welfare cuts.
We don’t need increased numbers of ordinary troops. What is needed is specialist weaponry, specialist units, intelligence and cyber capabilities. I would call for smarter not higher defence spending.
Of course we have to support this increase to 2.5%. It is still however not enough. We should be increasing spending year on year to the levels the USA and out eastern European allies are spending.
@Steve “ Why do we waste “military” money on renting a malfunctioning nuclear weapon set up from the U S A, whose permission we need to use?l
We don’t.
In 2010 defence spending was 2.5%, in 1997 it was 2,7%. It did vary, falling to a low of 2.2% in 2004. Given that there is an impending election, the announcement can only be viewed as an aspiration, which is not one I expect the Party to dissent from.
I would say that our focus should be on how the money is spent. Even if all European countries achieved 2.5%, it would be ineffective if the spending is uncoordinated.
The other issue is that Conservative spending plans are inadequately funded. It seems this aspiration is dependent on an economy that is thriving, so cannot be divorced from how GDP can recover to what it would have been without Brexit.
Pretty good summary by Nick Baird. My view is we should welcome the principle of spending more on defence while calling for more clarity on how the money will be spent and criticising the lack of attention to funding. It’s clearly nonsense for the Government to claim they can fund such a large increase in spending without additional borrowing or taxation – unless they cut something else. So the likelihood is taxes will have to rise. And that means we have to make sure the amounts spent are worth it.
We absolutely do need to be willing to defend democracy and must give additional help to Ukraine (and I’d argue also Taiwan) but my concern is there’s very little clarity on what the money will be used for. If we’re just handing the MoD £X billion and saying, here you are!, then that’s an extremely good way to basically just throw money away. We should be thinking much more in terms of, what additional capabilities do we need (for ourselves and for Ukraine)? How much will these cost? Which things have a good enough benefit for the cost to make them worth doing? THEN provide the money to do them.
Do we need to spend money on horses and fancy dress for the house hold cavalry? Seems a waste to me. Not to mention soldiers unable to control their mounts resulting in horses bolting and mayhem.
@Jenny Barnes
It might be wise to wait until more is made known about yesterday’s incident.
However, while I do have concerns about waste on military equipment spending – I would have suspected that the military ceremonial duties, especially in London, might be a major tourist attraction and therefore of wider benefit.
I support money being spent on defensive capability but not offensive capability. By that I mean that the UK should not be aiming to be a global power with the ability to project force around the world – the days of empire are gone – our military should exist to defend the UK and NATO. Period.
No more money on aircraft carriers – the UK is a massive aircraft carrier in the North East of the Atlantic, and that is where all our air forces should be based.
” military ceremonial duties, especially in London, might be a major tourist attraction”
What are we? Ruritania on Thames?
……… fundamental issue is that they haven’t yet said how this will be paid for, beyond a statement that “it will be fully funded with no increase in borrowing or debt”………
Not that I’m cynical but, if they can do that, it will make the “Feeding of 5,000 with five loaves of bread and two fish,” look like a parlour trick..
@expats
I too was wondering how this will be achieved.
My guess, a big reason for the increase in spending is to simply restock arsenals being depleted by shipments to Ukraine. So there needs to be a big increase in defence manufacturing. The catch is with the Tories so in thrall to the US we can see them signing contracts with US companies to the detriment of UK and European industries.
Given Trump and this socialisation of the idea that the US can pull out of NATO, I suggest increasing our and Europes security dependency on the US is not a good idea. Hence we should be pushing for more of that money to be spent in the UK. Whilst this will be good for our economy and get keep more money circulating wi5in the country, I still don’t see how it will not increase borrowing and debt…
I agree with Mary Fulton. Defending Britain? Absolutely. Defending ‘British interests’ as defined by the government of the day? Problematic. Many of us here doubtless marched against the invasion of Iraq. If the priority were solely to make the UK safer we’d buy an Iron Dome system, beef up cyber security and spend the rest of the budget on making the world safer through measures to reduce global poverty, disrupt dictators by countering their lies, and wean the economy off oil. We need a defence budget, not an attack budget.
I think Ukraine has shown that good defences do require some offensive capability – because if you are attacked, you have to be able to counter-attack to regain lost ground, or to attack enemy supply lines etc. For that reason alone, it seems unwise not to include offensive capabilities as part of our defence expenditure.
Besides, I’m not sure you can entirely distinguish the two when ordering equipment. Is – for example – ammunition that’s used defensively any different from ammunition that might be used offensively?
Paul ” I agree with Mary Fulton. Defending Britain? Absolutely. Defending ‘British interests’ as defined by the government of the day? …..We need a defence budget, not an attack budget.”
So on this basis we should not have gone to war in 1939 as Hitler was attacking Poland and we should have waited until he was on the French coast ?
Jenny: In many ways we have become Ruritania on Thames. I fight my way through crowds of overseas tourists taking selfies to get round Parliament Square. The middle of Oxford and Cambridge is much the same – and you can meet determined Japanese walking up from the Bronte family parsonage in Haworth to High Withens. Tourist revenues fill some of the gap left by Thatcher’s destruction of the UK’s industrial base.
Rather than comment on the proposed increase in the defence budget, present circumstances should direct us to rethink if we are using our current budget optimally. What sorts of war are we likely to fight? Certainly we should be working more closely with our neighbours inside and outside NATO. Our present situation outside the eu is complicating this and though the government (and Labour) won’t admit it the best thing we can do regarding our security concerns is to rejoin the eu.
Nick: The entire debate on tax and spend is now surreal. Sunak and Hunts know very well that their projections of public spending depend on future cuts in spending on prisons, schools and public investment which are incredible. Mail journalists know that calling for extra defence spending means calling for extra spending – but they continue to support promises of further tax cuts and to attack anyone who suggests otherwise. And Labour does not dare to admit that this is all nonsense, for fear of the right-wing media monstering them; nor do we, recognising that not enough of the public are willing to listen to hard reality rather than the vitriol (and false hopes) poured out by the Mail and others.
@William Wallace – we do seem to be back to ‘cakeism’ in a big way, with the PM claiming we can have tax cuts as well as increased defence spending, funded by cutting 72,000 civil service jobs. This isn’t remotely credible, and won’t stand up to scrutiny when the OBR and others look at the numbers in detail.
Seems to me that in a dangerous world with an aggressive Russia, unknowable China and unreliable USA we need to walk softly and carry a big stick. Increasing defence spending is unfortunately essential – as is getting closer to the EU of course.
One redeeming feature is that the UK’s defence strength does give us something g to offer the EU should single amrket/customs union/EU membership move up the agenda
“We need a defence budget, not an attack budget.”
You mean like a Maginot Line? That worked well.
This is a meaningless sentiment. We need an expeditionary force capability to support our NATO allies on the European mainland at the very least.
“We need a defence budget, not an attack budget.”
Let’s not forget the Falkland’s, the UKs current military probably could not retake them if they were to be occupied again…
The Govt have already stated their intention to reduce the Civil Service by tens of thousands and no doubt public spending in LAs would be in their sights. All smoke and mirrors rather than reality . Anything to appease defecting tory voters.
Ok let’s try and make the same points but in longer form. The NHS budget covers both prevention and cure, as prevention is cheaper and better. It’s seen as a failure when too much is spent on emergency treatment. The defence budget focuses primarily on emergency offensive capability, usually overseas, and prevention is only referenced by the calculated deterrent effect of that offensive capability. True prevention – jaw-jaw instead of war-war – is left to diplomacy (slashed budget), foreign aid (ditto) and cultural exchange (ditto again). It’s not fair to ask the armed services to risk their lives cleaning up stupid foreign policy mistakes, and I wonder if that feeds into the low moral outlined by Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer piece yesterday?
There is no meaningful comparison between an unfinished Maginot line (short enough to bypass) and the security that would be afforded by anti-missile systems permanently deployed around parts of the British isles. The BEF has both got completely bogged down (WW1) and had to retreat (Dunkirk). It’s still not clear to me how maintaining a standing army with the capacity to invade and destabilise another middle-eastern country (Iran this time?) or retake the Falklands, but which could never defend Britain on its own, keeps us safer than spending the money on prevention, followed by actual defence, then offensive capability.
A strategic defence review widened to cover the overall question of keeping Britain safe would therefore include diplomacy and aid etc, not just the military resources needed when everything else fails.