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Defence budget black hole 'a myth'
27 June 2012
Shadow Armed Forces Minister Kevan Jones told the Commons that all of the government's defence cuts since the Strategic Defence and Security Review had been based on avoiding the black hole, but that the government had repeatedly failed to produce figures showing how the figure was arrived at.
Jones said that according to National Audit Office Figures, with a flat cash budget and all projects approved, the gap could have reached £36bn in 10 years' time. He added that the higher figure could only be reached based on the delivery of all equipment projects in full, including items on wish lists.
Labour MP Madeleine Moon, who sits on the Defence Select Committee, said the committee had been told that the £38bn figure included "a roll-forward of all items on wish lists".
"This was, we were told, the equivalent of an individual becoming bankrupt because they fancied buying a Ferrari but never actually bought one," said Moon.
Jones said the figure was "a fiction" that had been used to justify "draconian" cuts and that if it were true, the government's claims to have balanced the budget in just two years were "an accounting fantasy".
"It is becoming clear to many that the Secretary of State has balanced the budget on the backs of our brave service men and women," said Jones, who served as veterans minister under the last Labour government.
While Labour has since confirmed it would have sought to make efficiency savings in defence, Jones said that he had been given Treasury clearance to make investments in some areas in order to secure longer-term savings.
"They were not just in-year savings to try to satisfy the Treasury and the deficit reduction programme on which this government are embarking," he said.
Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey said that the black hole had been defined in the early stages of the SDSR process when Ministry of Defence officials were asked to detail the "true financial situation" at the MoD.
"The explanation came that if we took the manpower commitments, all the overheads and all the committed expenditure, including the contracts that had been signed for procurement and those that had been announced by the previous government as Ministry of Defence policy, and planned to bring them on stream when the Labour party said they would be, over the 10-year period, there was a gap between all that and a "flat real" terms assumption on funding—not a "flat cash" assumption—in relation to the 2010-11 budget," said Harvey.
"We were told that the gap over the 10-year period would amount to £38bn."
HAVE YOUR SAY
27 June 2012
No MP is going to stand up and tell the truth,
the truth here is that ALL parties would have cut our defence budget.
The fact that these MP's can damage defence when in power and condemn when in opposition, and I include all parties here, while our service personnel lose their lives is sickening at best, insulting at worse.
EVERY political party in this country has cut defence when they have needed to find money either to fund their pie in the sky projects or to bring budgets under control.
It is an affront to those serving on the front line that these lily livered cowardly, "I'm only an MP to get what I can" people argue like children instead of working together to resolve a mess THEY ALL created.
Maybe we should take a leaf out of other countries and kick every MP out onto the streets as they have proved time and again that not one of them understands defence matters nor cares for the lives lost due to their indifference.
It's time for another political party to enter the fray, what we have now, ANY of them, are a liabilty to this country.
JC - UK
27 June 2012
Well said and agree totally.
I would like to see an "MP's and Ministers Battalion" where these idiots are forced to serve on the front line, deployed time and time again constantly breaching harmony guidelines and wearing out their kit, because it is constantly overused and not able to be in ten places at once.
Reduce benefits to those who do not deserve it, sort out the feral, feckless layabouts waiting for their benefits every week, reduce the gravy train to the EU and the madness of foreign aid and spend even a fraction of that on HM Forces and we would be in a much better place.
No votes in it though, so they will not. All politicians are interested in is themselves and their careers, not their country.
Daniele Mandelli - Guildford
27 June 2012
Well said, another myth that needs to go is the oft used £1.8Bn. It seems to crop up all the time, a shortfall here, an overspend there, occasionally even a 'saving of' it has almost become a figure of speech and must be considered highly suspect as to its truth and accuracy, oh sorry, we're talking about 'a quote from a government spokesperson' here, so it must be true and accurate surely?
Hereman - w
27 June 2012
JC - UK, Daniele Mandelli - Guildford
Have to agree with you both, you can always tell when an MP is lying, there lips are moving. To be honest I would imagine the truth is somewhere in the middle, that both sides are trying to spin the figures to discredit the other. Meanwhile our Armed forces are the ones suffering.
Rob - Telford
27 June 2012
The 'black hole' was always a myth, if defence spending is 3% then the so called black hole disappears, it simply depends on what your objectives are and thus what you are prepared to spend on defence and the level of procurement that entails.
It was always an arbitrary figure. Do you think in WW2 we spoke of black holes in the defence budget, of course we didn't! you match your objectives with your spending and this government seems to believes that is for us to become 'Belgium with nukes' and they are well on the way to achieving it.
Graham - High Wycombe
28 June 2012
It isn't important what the budget was or is, its how much was/is the spend. Have we got those figures?
Stephen Bishop - SOUTHAMPTON
29 June 2012
The article ends up in the end with a he's aid she said, and not a final and this is the truth!
The figure is either based on all signed contracts and all commitments announced publicly by a government, or also all 'wish-list' items of the services which were never going to be funded.
The figure is either based on a planned flat cash predicted budget or a flat real, I.e. adjusted for inflation budget.
WHAT IS THE TRUTH!
The problem is real in that the MOD has for years been in a mindset that we have a need to provide a service which is bigger than the country is willing to pay for and the MOD keeps pretending that it is a temporary situation so if we do not have enough money we simply move the spend in to the future because at some mythical point in the future we will get a lot more money. It IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! Spending will be 2% of GDP not 3% and remember GDP has not seen any growth in 2 years.
Once you accept that is the size of the pie the discussion becomes what can we affoard to do. A military based on 2% of a smaller GDP will be much smaller than one based on 3% of a bigger GDP and that means we should be deciding that the ambition to get back at some point in the future to a fleet of 50 or even 25 escorts is cloud cuckoo land.
Dan - Oxford