Defence Investment Plan: Timeline given for publishing finances for Royal Navy military reforms - when
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The programme has been delayed since the autumn of last year
The long-awaited defence investment plan could be published before the Nato summit in early July, the defence secretary has said.
John Healey told MPs that the Prime Minister was hoping to launch the delayed policy details before the Nato event in Ankara, Turkey, which begins on July 7. The plan, known as the Dip, was originally slated for publication last autumn but has been repeatedly delayed. It will set out a plan for how money is spent on defence.
Some in Westminster had expected the plan to be published this week, exactly a year on from the strategic defence review that called for a DIP. Ministers have been repeatedly criticised over the delay to the Dip, with Commons Defence Committee chairman Tan Dhesi saying Britain’s military and defence industry “need to know where we stand and where we are going”.
A wrangle between the Treasury and Ministry of Defence (MoD) is thought to be behind the delay. Other problems include a reported £28bn blackhole in the MoD’s budget up until 2030.
Speaking in the Commons at the top of defence questions, Mr Healey said: “Armed forces numbers are now growing, part of the transformation of defence in the defence investment plan which I can tell the House the Prime Minister is determined to publish before the Nato summit.” Conservative shadow defence minister Mark Francois later compared the delay to the Samuel Beckett play, which has become a byword for long waits, Waiting For Godot.
The government has persistently said it has raised levels of defence spending by its highest levels since The Cold War. This follows on from pledges to raise sector spending to 2.6 per cent of GDP by 2027, and 3.5 per cent on core defence spending by 2025.
Tanmanjeet Singh Dheshi, chair of the defence select committee, told the House of Commons that funding for the armed forces has been too slow. He added that other nations have been quicker off the mark in accepting new ways to finance increase military spending, such as establishing a defence security and resilience bank.
“The Canadians have stolen the march on us, even though the idea was developed by a former British army officers,” the Labour MP for Slough said. “Other nations have opted for a loosening of the fiscal rules ju8st for defence. Given the increased threats, and the level of volatility, we must accelerate investment in defence to three per cent spend in this parliament. Given that context, what is the government’s action? We cannot plodding along at the pace we are. We must meet the moment.”
Mr Healey responded: “His description of the biggest increased in defence spending since the end of The Cold War is hardly a plodding path. I welcome his committee’s report into defence investment. He will be aware the prime minister in his Munich speech said ‘we must build hard power as that is the currency of the age’. We know we must spend more faster, and we will.”