Labour’s handling of Britain’s Armed Forces has come under fresh fire after a senior Nato commander warned that cutting vital Army training to save money risks becoming a “recipe for disaster”.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham is facing mounting pressure over defence spending after exercises involving live firing and armoured vehicles were curtailed as the Army seeks to make savings of around £30 million.
The restrictions have affected parts of the Army’s 3rd Division, while reservists have also faced reductions in the number of days they can serve and train. Separate reporting earlier this month confirmed that live-fire tank exercises were among training activities being stopped because of financial pressures.
Now Lieutenant General Benoît Desmeulles, commander of France’s 1st Army Corps, has delivered a stark assessment of the consequences.
Speaking to The Telegraph at the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Prague Defence Summit, he described making savings from military exercises as a “very, very bad” decision.
He warned: “No training equals no ‘fight-tonight’ capacity.”
Lt Gen Desmeulles added that troops needed both the skills and equipment necessary to do their jobs, warning that failure to provide them amounted to a “recipe for disaster”.
His intervention will pile further pressure on a Labour Government already struggling to explain how Britain will meet its longer-term Nato commitments while balancing an increasingly strained public purse.
The £30 million Army saving is particularly uncomfortable for Burnham because his Government is simultaneously being urged by Nato to provide a credible timetable for substantially higher defence expenditure.
Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said this week that Britain must establish a “credible path” of annual increases towards spending 3.5 per cent of GDP on core defence by 2035.
The Government has so far budgeted for defence spending to reach 2.7 per cent of GDP by 2027/28, but detailed funding plans for reaching the higher Nato commitment are not expected until the next spending review.
Mr Rutte made clear that governments could not simply leave the spending increases until the last moment, saying Nato members needed “yearly increments” towards the target.
He said: “You cannot spend it today, but you can also not wait until 2035.”
The criticism exposes the increasingly difficult choices facing Burnham’s Labour Government, particularly after the Prime Minister has resisted arguments that higher defence expenditure should be funded by reductions in welfare spending.
Burnham has defended Labour’s record, telling MPs earlier this month that defence spending was set to reach 2.7 per cent of GDP and contrasting that figure with the 2.3 per cent level when the previous Conservative government left office.
But percentage targets on a Treasury spreadsheet are unlikely to reassure soldiers whose training is being restricted today.
The fundamental purpose of military spending is not simply to satisfy an accounting target, it is to ensure Britain has personnel who are trained, equipped and ready to fight when required.
Swedish Defence Minister Pål Jonson has also stressed the importance of Nato countries honouring the defence spending commitments made by alliance members. Sweden has itself made strengthening collective defence and following through on Nato expenditure commitments central priorities.
Britain’s Armed Forces remain among Nato’s most important military contributors, but warnings from senior allied commanders underline the danger of allowing financial pressures to eat into basic readiness.
At a time of heightened international tension and growing demands on Nato, Labour now finds itself defending a situation in which one of the world’s leading military powers is restricting exercises to find £30 million of savings.
Burnham may insist his Government is committed to defence, but soldiers cannot prepare for war with promises about spending several years from now.
As one of Britain’s Nato allies has now put it in considerably plainer language, no training means no ability to “fight tonight”.
