Defence Reform

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. Let me quote from the evidence given to the Select Committee by the former Secretary of State. In response to a question from a Member, he said:

“There is a huge ability to reduce a very large proportion of that. My guess is that of that £38 billion we are talking of something like £8 billion to £9 billion, and that is a ballpark figure.”

During that evidence session, he gave a commitment to the Select Committee Chair that he would write giving details of how he arrived at that figure, but he did not. The Committee was still waiting for that information when the report was produced, but it did not appear. I heard one of the Government Front Benchers scoff when I said that certain things move in and out of budget, but they clearly do. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) is right: the Government racked up everything in the programme over a 10-year period and assumed that it would all be delivered. That is similar to the argument used about pension black holes, the assumption being that all the money is paid out, today. That is not the way the defence procurement budget is structured.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

The Government obviously intend to keep the myth going, and who could blame them for that? However, can my hon. Friend explain how, on two separate occasions—we should remember that this Government have only been in power for a little over two years—two separate Secretaries of State can have claimed that the £38 billion gap has already gone and that the budget is now in balance? If the imbalance was as large as they alleged, how on earth have two separate Secretaries of State been able to claim within two years that the budget is in balance already?

[Mr Jones]

My right hon. Friend, like me, knows the MOD budget very well. Clearly, what the Government have done is to take out in-year capability. We should also remember the reductions in armed forces personnel—the people who are paying for some of this. My right hon. Friend is correct: the idea that such a big black hole can be filled in two years is complete nonsense. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary, the right hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan), says that it is 10 years, but that is not the impression the Government have been giving. All their decisions, such as slashing personnel numbers, are predicated on this £38 billion black hole. Earlier last year, the previous Secretary of State stopped using that figure—for a while. Suddenly, under the new Secretary of State, it has come back. The Government have got to explain their use of it, because it is the entire raison d’être for some of the cuts they are making.