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Defence in the World

Yes, it might indeed be climate change. Both recruitment and retention remain essential to our efforts to sustain adequate numbers of boots on the ground, but intake has fallen and outflow has increased. Commonwealth nationals are increasingly being relied upon to fill the gap where British forces are leaving. It is clear that there must be further efforts and incentives to put that right. It is notable that many of our allies are succeeding in increasing their troop numbers while the British are struggling to stand their current ground. Iraq and Afghanistan have been costly ventures financially, and although about £10 billion has come out of the urgent operational requirements the Ministry clearly faces a budgetary crisis. It is fair to argue that the marginal costs of those operations are met by urgent operational requirements, but it is not true, as Government spokesmen try to imply, that the total costs are met through the UORs because they are not. The strain, in human terms and in terms of the life expectancy of some of our equipment, is not to be underestimated. It cannot be denied that a financial situation that was already bad is being made considerably worse. The Government are keen to point out that we have one of the largest defence budgets, pro rata, in the world, but that it is not the whole picture. We know that defence inflation vastly outstrips general inflation and although the Government can quite fairly point to the fact that there are real terms increases over the next three years, as measured according to the retail prices index, that does not necessarily translate into real terms in the defence sector. The Government face financial difficulty across the board, and no more money will be available during the period that we are considering. Again, that underlines the need to ask some fundamental questions about how to balance our commitments with the resources.