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Future of the Territorial Army

Indeed, and many of the myths the Government have been peddling in recent times have been blown apart by events of the past few weeks. If there really is a problem in funding all the new recruits, and if money was going to be diverted from the TA budget to address that but now that is not going to happen, where will the MOD find the money that will still be required to fund those extra recruits? What other areas will have to experience cuts because the Government failed to plan properly? That brings me to the other excuse given by the Government—it is perhaps even more telling. The Secretary of State said in a recent debate:""We are adjusting the core defence budget to reprioritise Afghanistan".—[Official Report, 15 October 2009; Vol. 497, c. 469.]" Yet the Government have repeatedly told the House in recent years that they""always finance our military commitments overseas out of the reserve".—[Official Report, 5 February 2009; Vol. 487, c. 1083.]" It has always been the House's understanding that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be funded from the reserve and would not have an impact on the core budget. If operations in Afghanistan are fully funded from the reserve, why does the Ministry of Defence need to adjust the core budget to reprioritise operations in Afghanistan? What is the MOD core budget paying for that the Treasury is not? One of the most telling things that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair ever said was contained in one of his long farewell tour speeches. When speaking on one of Her Majesty's ships he said, "Under Labour, we have kept spending on defence constant at about 2.5 per cent. of GDP, if you include Iraq and Afghanistan." In other words, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan were being fought on a peacetime budget, and that has always meant that there would be some impact on the core budget. It is now clear that— as many Members of the House have said in many debates in recent times—all costs associated with operations in Afghanistan will not be paid in full above and beyond the core defence budget.