Defence digest: things are not going well
The Defence Investment Plan is about to be published many months late but it will not provide adequate resources for the defence of the realm, but ministers are in denial
Making the Strategic Defence Review a reality
Regular readers will have intuited that one of the things which irritates me beyond measure is the current government’s habit of blithely saying that everything is going well and simply refusing to engage with facts which show that everything is clearly not going well. The past masters in this field are, of course, the ministers, civil servants and senior military officers in the Ministry of Defence, and this week has seen a regular drumbeat of stories in the media illustrating this huge and widening detachment from reality.
Tuesday this week was the anniversary of the publication of the government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR); or rather, I should say, the Strategic Defence Review written for the government, because, uniquely, it was the work of three external reviewers, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, General Sir Richard Barrons and Dr Fiona Hill. They make an impressive and weighty trio and I would always listen with interest to anything they had to say; and while I was critical of some of the shortcomings imposed on the SDR by its terms of reference, the reviewers produced a helpful piece of work which pointed to some of the major decisions that need to be faced in defence and security policy.
The SDR was a broad policy statement, and was to be underpinned and given effect by the Defence Investment Plan (DIP), which, we were told last June, would be published in “the Autumn of 2025”. It has still not been published. This is an enormous failure by the Ministry of Defence and the government more widely, and I was possibly more critical than usual when I addressed the issue in The Spectator on Tuesday. The point is this: the SDR without the DIP is a collection of ambitions and little more—it is the what and why, but not the how or the when. It will only become real when the DIP is published and we see exactly how much the government is planning to spend on defence, and what it will be spent on. Given the late publication, the government had effectively written off a whole year in which very little has happened, though the Ministry of Defence will produce reams of verbiage insisting the opposite. Ministers, and ultimately the Prime Minister, have wasted a year.
Sir Keir Starmer has now announced that the DIP will be published before the annual NATO Summit in Ankara on 7-8 July. Visiting defence technology company and manufacturer of autonomous weapons systems Stark in Swindon, he made a series of almost unbelievable remarks, which were not only lacking any contrition for the appalling delay to the DIP, but, in his inimitably stiff, adenoidal, gaslighting way, tried to pretend that the government was being diligent and responsible.
The strategic review was a massive review to answer those questions. And you won’t be surprised to know that a lot of focus was on technology, on how we equip our armed forces with the best, and how we make more of autonomous capability, some of the stuff that you are working on. Now, in order to put that strategic review into effect, we’ve got a Defence Investment Plan. So that is a plan that says, here’s the money that goes with the capability, we bring the two together, and it is another step up. It is another increase in spending, but it is necessary. It’s the right thing to do to defend our country. Now, we’ve been working on that Defence Investment Plan for some time, very closely with our armed forces, as you would expect, because we need that interaction. What is the capability that you most need, in what time period, with the MoD, and actually across government, because this is an across government priority. And that will now be published before the NATO summit, which is in just a few weeks’ time.
I’m relatively realistic, and I’ve worked around politicians for a long time now, but I am genuinely taken aback that a Prime Minister who has presided over such huge delays to such a key document can be quite so bare-faced, patronising and blind to reality as Starmer managed. To explain as if to a slow-witted child why the DIP was so important, to preen himself for overseeing it, to indicate or at least imply that it was such a more mature and rational approach to defence policy and procurement than previous governments had taken, yet not even to nod to the fact that it is, to be generous, nine months late, indicates a level of mendacity or self-delusion I simply cannot grapple with.
Incredibly, Starmer went on to say “So you can see the urgency and the priority that we’re putting behind this”. Those words actually passed his lips. He then produced a peroration—that dignifies it somewhat—which is now stale from repetition and meaningless by apparent falsity.
This is about the single most important thing in our country. And that is defence and security of our country and everybody within our country. And as I say, every single day I remind myself that that is my first priority, the first priority for my government.
If that were true, the Defence Investment Plan would not be nine months late, we would not still be waiting to increase defence spending even to 2.5 per cent of GDP (which will take place in 2027, we are assured) when, for example, Poland is spending 4.5 per cent, Latvia is spending 3.6 per cent, Estonia is spending 3.4 per cent, Norway and Denmark are spending 3.3 per cent and Greece is spending three per cent. It is bad enough that we are lagging badly behind our NATO allies—roughly 11th in an alliance of 32 member states—but to be boasting of the achievement is reprehensible.
The Defence Investment Plan: a day late and a dollar short?
So the Defence Investment Plan will, if the government is true to its word, stagger across the line nine or 10 months late. Its delay has already caused significant problems for many defence companies which have been left unable to plan or invest; some have relocated and some have simply gone out of business. But that is not the end of it, because the DIP is unlikely to make happy reading.
The Ministry of Defence needs an additional £28 billion over the next four years to meet its current commitments and proceed with existing procurement programmes. Government sources had already put into the ether, presumably as an exercise in expectation management, the idea that a more likely figure was £18 billion, which is so far short of what is needed as to constitute a crisis in itself. Predictably yet still astoundingly, the government briefed this as a triumph, one anonymous military source calling it “great news” and saying:
It is great the government is taking defence seriously. It is super important for Britain’s position in the world and for the morale of service personnel.
This was portrayed as a “big, bold offer”, and a victory for Starmer over his opponents in Whitehall. I would only observe that if you are Prime Minister, getting your way is not so much a triumph as a requirement of the job; the more sources paint this as a hard-fought win, the more they unwittingly expose Starmer’s weakness and lack of authority.
Interviewed by Times Radio a couple of weeks ago, General Lord Dannatt, former Chief of the General Staff, explained that even £18 billion “doesn’t go far enough and there will have to be more”. He pointed out the huge investment needed in the Royal Navy’s surface fleet, the fact that the United Kingdom has very little defence against ballistic missiles and drones. He also observed, fairly I think, that “it’s only frankly being addressed now by Keir Starmer as he’s clinging on with his fingernails to his office”.
It gets worse. This week The Times reported that the additional £18 billion, the “big, bold offer” and “great news”, might actually only be £15 billion. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, met again this week to discuss the Defence Investment Plan and are reported to be anxious about the condition of the public finances and the effect on the British economy of the war in Iran. It is said that the National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, and the Cabinet Secretary, Dame Antonia Romeo, have both supported the higher figure of £18 billion, yet Starmer seems inexplicably in thrall to a Chancellor who has comprehensively torched her reputation, her credibility and her chances of future advancement or even survival by her performance and demeanour over the past two years.
Again, there was a government spokesman in full denial mode to insist how well the the administration was performing:
We are the only European NATO member to commit our nuclear deterrent in full to the alliance. We have always met our NATO spending commitments and remain one of the top defence spenders in the alliance as NATO’s third-largest cash spender on defence.
The UK is the only European NATO member to commit its nuclear deterrent, true enough, but that is somewhat less impressive when it is recalled that only two European NATO members, the UK and France, have any nuclear capability at all. What that means is: we’re doing something the French aren’t. It is also true that we have in the past met our NATO spending commitments, but what is now more pressing is whether we meet them in the future, and our past record is utterly irrelevant to that. And as for being the third-largest cash spender, we are also the third-largest economy in NATO after the United States and Germany, so we are merely pulling our weight.
Whether the increase in spending is £15 billion or £18 billion, the fact remains that it will leave the Ministry of Defence being forced to cut or delay programmes to make our commitments affordable. It has not gone unnoticed that the Chancellor recently announced the government would commit £1.3 billion to the development of Universal United Kingdom Resort, a planned theme park in Kempston Hardwicke in Bedfordshire to be built by US media giant Comcast NBCUniversal, which generates annual revenue of over $120 billion (about £90 billion).
In-fighting and incompetence all the way down
Meanwhile, it is also reported that HM Treasury is seeking to take control of the UK’s involvement in the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), a tripartite venture with Italy and Japan which will produce a new sixth-generation stealth fighter aircraft which will be known as Tempest in Royal Air Force service. This is a major procurement programme—of the £15 billion or £18 billion in additional expenditure, some £6 billion with be spent on GCAP—and the Treasury is insisting on assuming control partly because it is a complex, international project but also because the Ministry of Defence is not trusted to manage multi-billion-pound procurement after disasters like the Ajax armoured fighting vehicle, the Warrior Capability Sustainment Programme and the Nimrod MRA4.
One option would be to designate GCAP as a “Mega Project”, which would give it access to additional support from the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA), a body which sits across the Treasury and the Cabinet Office. This is a status already granted to the SSN-AUKUS submarine programme, Northern Powerhouse Rail, High Speed 2 Phase 1 and the Lower Thames Crossing.
According to The Financial Times, “some British officials believe delivery is likely to slip beyond the date pinpointed when the three countries announced plans to develop a joint stealth fighter in December 2022”; the new aircraft is due to enter service in 2035. There is some irony here: an interim funding deal for GCAP expires at the end of this month, but uncertainty emanates not from Japan or Italy but from the UK. The government says it “remains committed” to GCAP, but it has not been able to turn words into deeds in the absence of the Defence Investment Plan. British officials may be anxious, but it is currently Britain which is the least reliable partner.
The Ministry of Defence’s track record in major equipment procurement is dreadful, a litany of sprawling costs, unravelling schedules and a lack of any proper accountability. But if HM Treasury does take control of GCAP, what does that say about the future of the MoD? Part of Defence Secretary John Healey’s so-called Defence Reform restructuring of the Ministry of Defence was the creation of a National Armaments Director Group to transform the procurement process. If it cannot be trusted to manage the acquisition of a new fighter aircraft, how far can it be trusted, and what was the point in establishing it? The logical conclusion of the Treasury argument would be to remove procurement from the MoD entirely: as partially happened during the lifespan of the MoD Procurement Executive (1971-99) and the Defence Procurement Agency (1999-2007).
Other question marks hang over equipment plans. The publicised commitment to procuring 7,000 long-range missiles is not yet finalised. There is still no firm timetable for the first Type 31 frigate which will replace five of the current Type 23 frigates in a general purpose role, despite the fact the remaining Type 23s are now very old.
Government-wide failure
Sir Keir Starmer repeats endlessly that the security of the nation is his top priority. But the provision of that security is a shambles. The SDR is being implemented late and there will not be enough funding even to make good the capability gaps and the commitments not being met in the armed forces. There is no clear plan to increase defence spending to the level required, and even the Prime Minister—who is, in any case, fighting to keep his job—seems unable to bring the HM Treasury into line behind agreed national priorities and objectives. The UK faces acute and immediate threats, yet decisions and acquisitions are being pushed back down the road.
The worst of it is that ministers will not admit a shred of it. Publicly they congratulate themselves for their sober commitment, dedication and seriousness of purpose. Behind the scenes, it is at best stasis, occasionally giving way to furious inter-departmental brawling. Either the government won’t take the measures necessary to provide us with the armed forces, with the personnel, equipment and capabilities we need, or it is not able to. Neither is acceptable.