Defence: Budget

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

The first priority of our Armed Forces is of course to defend and protect our own people. After that, it is a case of the Government deciding what further role they want our nation and require our Armed Forces to play beyond our shores, and having made that decision providing our Armed Forces with the capability to carry out that role. That is what the forthcoming strategic defence and security review and the spending review should be about. The last SDSR did not prove very accurate in forecasting many of the key events of the last five years. It was silent on the upheavals that have occurred in north Africa, the rise of ISIL, and on Russian activity and aggression in the Ukraine. I hope that the forthcoming SDSR will prove to be a rather more reliable document in that regard.

We then have the issue of money; defence is not a protected department, and there will have to be very substantial cuts—18%, say independent sources—in non-protected departments if the Government are to hit their own deficit reduction target. The Government have already committed themselves to no further reductions in the size of our regular Armed Forces, at least a 1% real-terms increase in the defence equipment budget throughout this Parliament, and the renewal of our nuclear deterrent. Can the Minister say what areas, if any, of the defence budget are being considered for cuts in expenditure, and what level of cuts, if any, the Government expect to make in the defence budget in real terms? In the Queen’s Speech the Government stated that they would,

“continue to play a leading role in global affairs, using its presence all over the world to re-engage with and tackle the major international security, economic and humanitarian challenges”.

The recent comments by the US Defense Secretary that our reductions in military spending were,

“actions which seem to indicate disengagement”,

suggest that not everybody has been convinced by the Government’s statement about our future global role.

That is a further reason why the Government should be open and promote debate, including in this House, on their view of the threats we face, our global role, and the military capability we need, prior to final decisions being made on the SDSR and the spending review, and not simply say in effect that anybody is welcome to write in with their thoughts. The 2015 SDSR has to be a credible document, with regard first to defence and foreign policy objectives, and secondly to the resources needed by our Armed Forces to deliver those objectives.