Ainsworth: 'Tough choices lie ahead'

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The £36bn defence budget looks likely to be overhauled as the government attempts to get to grips with the need to prioritises resources on Afghanistan.

While Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth said Trident would stay, he insisted that soldiers in Afghanistan would be the "principal commitment for as long as it takes".

However, he added: "We cannot exclude major shifts in the way that we use our defence spending to refocus our priorities. There will be tough choices ahead. We will need to be better at spending the money we have and more rigorous in prioritising what we spend it on."

On Trident, he said: "There is no intention on this government's part of moving our position on Trident. Of course, if we can provide that at sea deterrent with three submarines rather than four submarines, and therefore cut the cost, we will look to do that."

Ainsworth also told an audience at Kings College London that there was little public appetite for higher defence spending.

"Military people say to me all the time, we need a bigger defence budget. That is not the pressure MPs of all parties get from their constituencies," he said. "In my constituency, I do not get demands for a higher defence budget. Quite the reverse. We need to live in the real world, where the British public are."

Liberal Democrat shadow defence secretary Nick Harvey said: "It seems Bob Ainsworth has finally realised that our defence spending plans bear little relation to our current priorities. But he is still not acting with nearly enough urgency. It is painfully obvious that when our frontline troops are desperately short of helicopters and airlift, we should not be pushing ahead with the costly, Cold War irrelevances of Trident and Eurofighter. His call for a 'national debate' rings hollow coming from a government which has time and again failed to listen to the needs of our troops and the views of the British people."