"Fully affordable" Royal Navy reforms backed by defiant defence secretary as he denies £28bn shortfall
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Defence Secretary John Healey has rejected reports that critical defence reforms were not fully costed.
The Labour MP told the defence select committee on Tuesday (January 27) not to believe reports about funding gaps, and said the money is there for defence. Doubts have been building about whether the recommendations in the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) can be fully realised.
Reports surfaced earlier this month that the country’s top military chief, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, warned the prime minister of a £28bn shortfall in the Ministry of Defence budget.
The Chief of Defence Staff would proceed to appear in front of the defence select committee, becoming agitated at the line of questioning regarding the financial picture. Sir Richard described the SDR as an “external document” and said its reforms could not be realised as quickly as the government hoped under the current spending parameters at the same time as maintaining the current spending parameters.
He added that not all the financial details were ironed out in the SDR and priorities will be outlined in the Defence Investment Plan (DIP) - delayed since the autumn of last year. Conservative MP Jesse Norman described this as a “disavow” of the SDR, and cast doubt of whether it was fully costed.
When asked by reporters in June if it was properly funded, Sir Keir Starmer said: “I’m 100 per cent confident this can be delivered, because it was baked in from the very start of the review.” Mr Healey echoed this statement to the committee.
Responding to the committee’s chair, Tanmanjeet Singh Dheshi, the Labour MP for Conisbrough and Rawmarsh said: “I would just say to you, Mr chairman, and you’ve been around long enough to know not to take at face value what you read in the press.
“The SDR, when it was completed and published, was fully affordable within the financial commitments that we made. That was confirmed, including by the prime minister when he published it. You will know that there is £6bn extra in the defence budget this year compared to last year. You will know, this committee above all, that we will be spending, as things are, £270bn in this Parliament alone.
“And so the challenge for us, like any organisation, is to make sure that we are directing that investment to the things that matter most. We’re doing it in a way that allows us to control and manage our budgets for the future, because that’s exactly what the taxpayer would would expect of us.”
The government has pledged to raise defence spending to 2.6 per cent by 2027, and meet Nato’s commitment of 3.5 per cent on core defence by 2035.