UK military spending plan 2010-2020

20 October 2010 by Rod McLaren

The Strategic Defence Review was announced on 19 Oct 2010. Its aim: “to ensure that our mission in Afghanistan is protected; and to make sure we emerge with a coherent defence capability in 2020”.

The headlines:

• MoD budget cut by 8% by 2015
• Army reduces by 7,000 soldiers to 95,500 by 2015, though no changes will be made to front line Army, Royal Marine or RAF Regiment units while operations in Afghanistan continue
• 405 tanks and artillery vehicles will go (35-40% of capability)
• Navy reduces by 5,000 sailors to 30,000 by 2015
• Reluctantly, both of the new aircraft carriers will be built (David Cameron – “The carriers they ordered are unable to work effectively with our key defence partners, the United States or France. They had failed to plan so carriers and planes would arrive at the same time. They ordered the more expensive, less capable version of the Joint Strike Fighter to fly off the carriers. And they signed contracts so we were left in a situation where even cancelling the second carrier would cost more than to build it. I have this in written confirmation from BAE systems [...] We will build both carriers, but hold one in extended readiness”)
• Ark Royal and Harrier jump jets scrapped immediately (and F35 Joint Strike Fighters won’t replace them until 2015), several other ships to be decommissioned: Navy warships will fall from 24 to 19
• Trident renewal delayed until after 2015 (saving £750m over four years)
• RAF reduces by 5,000 airmen to 33,000 by 2015.
• Nimrod planes being axed
• Special forces funding will increase to allow the purchase of sophisticated weapons and communications equipment (this boost presumably driven by their key role in both counter-terrorism and Afghanistan – two of the tier one risks in the National Security Strategy yesterday)
• Civilian MoD staff reduced by 25,000 by 2015 (saving £4.7bn over four years).

The best place to see the summaries are the MoD’s announcement, The Guardian’s list and the BBC’s coverage, though the Daily Mail had the best photos of grim/furious servicemen.

Remember that this department has done fairly well in the spending review compared to others – so we expect to see significant pain and cuts to public sector capability in today’s spending review, eg: Government expects 490,000 public sector job cuts.

Related: the National Security Strategy.

UK National Security Strategy 2010 UK policing spending plan 2010-2015