A question about the strength of the British Armed Forces has once again highlighted a consistent decrease in personnel numbers across the British Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force since the turn of the millennium.
The figures, disclosed in a parliamentary written question by SNP MP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Alan Brown, and answered by Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Ministry of Defence, Andrew Murrison, paint a concerning picture of the diminishing size of the UK’s military forces.
The statistics indicate that since the year 2000, the British Army has seen its numbers fall from 109,600 to 76,950 in 2023, marking a significant reduction of nearly 30%. Similarly, the Royal Navy and Royal Marines have not been spared, with their numbers dwindling from 42,800 to 32,590 in the same period. The Royal Air Force has experienced a similar downward trajectory, with personnel numbers dropping from 54,600 to 31,940.
The percent reduction in personnel for each service since the year 2000 is as follows:
- British Army: Reduced by approximately 29.79%
- Royal Navy and Royal Marines: Reduced by approximately 23.86%
- Royal Air Force: Reduced by approximately 41.50%
The detailed figures are as follows:
| Year | British Army | Royal Navy and Royal Marines | Royal Air Force |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 109,600 | 42,800 | 54,600 |
| 2001 | 109,200 | 42,100 | 53,600 |
| 2002 | 110,100 | 42,600 | 52,900 |
| 2003 | 112,000 | 41,400 | 53,100 |
| 2004 | 112,100 | 40,700 | 53,100 |
| 2005 | 108,800 | 39,800 | 51,400 |
| 2006 | 107,200 | 39,200 | 47,900 |
| 2007 | 105,900 | 38,800 | 45,100 |
| 2008 | 104,610 | 38,410 | 43,300 |
| 2009 | 106,890 | 38,350 | 43,520 |
| 2010 | 107,740 | 38,650 | 43,800 |
| 2011 | 105,940 | 37,480 | 42,230 |
| 2012 | 103,820 | 35,500 | 39,710 |
| 2013 | 98,630 | 33,860 | 36,690 |
| 2014 | 90,390 | 33,160 | 35,050 |
| 2015 | 85,590 | 32,670 | 33,860 |
| 2016 | 84,700 | 32,480 | 33,410 |
| 2017 | 83,000 | 32,470 | 33,100 |
| 2018 | 80,590 | 32,460 | 32,850 |
| 2019 | 78,800 | 32,500 | 32,780 |
| 2020 | 79,290 | 32,960 | 32,860 |
| 2021 | 81,720 | 33,890 | 33,220 |
| 2022 | 80,060 | 33,750 | 33,130 |
| 2023 | 76,950 | 32,590 | 31,940 |
The Conservatives know how to cut..
Army
Navy
RAF
Hospitals
Doctors
Railways
They know how to spend
Legal and Illegal Migration
HS2
House of Lords
Net Zero
Green Agender
Virtue Signalling
Please add to either list…..
New nuclear to add to that list. Latest reactor in Somerset price has risen by £10 billion.
Why we can’t go with the RR SMR design and have dozens of compact reactors doing the same job at less than half the price I simply don’t understand.
Seems whenever we try to deliver infrastructure it has to cost billions and billions , be late, over budget and beset with problems.
Thankfully the cost rise in Hinkley C is wholly shouldered by EDF, lets just get RR to build the SMR and stop dithering.
One thing nuclear guarantees is higher energy bills.
Per unit at point of generation yes, but when you add in the additional pylons, addtional storage, fact you need over capacity to allow charging of storage that storage for renewables. I also need to have vessels to protect the offshore renewalbles cuurent 1 so far but inevitably the fleet will need to grow, this also isn’t priced in as its paid by the tax payer.
Here’s some numbers run by someone the other side of the pond for PV without inlcuding pylons. Our new reactores are generally going on existoing sites so no addtional pylons are needed.
Scenario 1: nuclear
Let’s assume a 3 GW installation of AP1000 units. That’s three units, at $2900 / kW, or about $9.6 billion. Ok, straight forward, let’s move to scenario 2.
Scenario 2: solar + batteries
The cost of solar PV is $1 million per MW. So, that’s $3.3 billion just to provide the same level of power. But we need more to charge the batteries. If we assume 4 hour storage (which for some reason is always the assumption), that’s 13 GWh of storage. During the day, assuming 8 hours of charging time, that requires 1600 MW of extra solar panels, or another $1.6 billion.
That leaves $360 per kWh for battery storage if you want to be on the same price level as the AP1000. Tesla’s megapack resales at $545 per kWh, taxes not included.
Ergo: batteries have to drop significantly to be cheaper than nuclear.
Generally when you run the numbers and include what you need to provide homes and industry with continuous supply renewables aren’t that cheap. The big green energy companies like to impress people with the generation costs at the PV Panel or Turbine and yes thats cheaper.
The reality is we need a mix of power sources and pitting one against the other in some wierd net zero battle is nonsense.
Policing & forensics, so many crimes go scot free & the public feel unsafe. Providing law & order is a very basic duty.
Funding local government so even with council tax rises a raft of esential services wither or are wtithdrawn.
How deperately we need people who are both qualified, talented & care passionately for the welfare of the people & the country, rather than a bunch of reject, dullard, egomaniacs in it for kudos & greed.
There no point in having policing and forensics if you don’t prosecute. We have shops proviing video of shop lifters to the police and police won’t prosecute its now considered not a crime to steal.
I agree we need ploiticians who care for the people of this country, but we have one party who who won’t fund and the other that think criminals are victims. Neither have any plan to protect law abiding citizens.
All rather frustrating! 😠
Military side of things l mean Being frustrating! The other subjects l will leave you guys to chat about. Enough to talk about, just on the military side of things. eek!
It’s frankly crazy. Every other peer nation is now investing in defences and increasing military. Except the UK
Really will have to be a new mindset when it comes to our politicians in the future and defence issues. My confidence is not high about this happening anytime soon. 😞 Hope I’m wrong about that.
Wow, 24-42% reductions w/in 25 yrs! Does not bode well for a particularly auspicious future force estimate. 🤔😳😱
In the 1980s/90s the RAF was between 80-90k men/ladies (didn’t have ‘other’ back then.
actually surprised that it is not the British Army that has suffered the biggest cuts in terms of percentage but the RAF!
The RAF has been comprehensively butchered. Gone are the pretty recent days of having squadrons of air defence fighters. Squadrons of deep strike bombers. Squadrons of close air support/tactical bombers.
Now if we are lucky we can muster 60 to 70 multi role aircraft that in war would be nearly all committed to UK air defence, leaving us with practically zero offensive or tactical air power to support the pitiful ground force we offer to NATO.
The brutal fact is our military is not capable of offering much, if anything, to European defence. They offer more to us than we offer them.
Err. No. What a load of rubbish.
RAF F-35s will be on the carrier(s). We would only commit (nearly) all RAF fighters in defending UK airspace if we did not have a deployed ground force anywhere and the UK was under intense aerial attack.
I think the baseline for the stats in this article should have been immediately post-Options for Change Defence Review, rather than the year 2000.
Under ‘Options’, the army was reduced from 160k to 120k Regs which was the figure which had reasonably carefully worked out as being required for the post-Cold War army – ie no Russian threat to Europe!
On that basis the army has been cut by 40% from its required figure.
With an army of 73k Regs, we will not be able to conduct an enduring operation at Brigade group strength ie an Op HERRICK, without being bolstered by AR and/or RM.
Deployment of a division plus National Support Elements (NSE) of c.25-30k for a ‘one-shot’ operation would be tough, and would probably require the cessation or severe curtailing of all the army’s other deployed activities.
This is a timely reminder from the USA that we are living in cloud cuckoo land. Here we are with our head well above the parapit telling the Russians, the Houthis and everyone it seem we have a Big Bad Stick we are coming to beat them with but in reality we are an Emperor with only his jockstrap on!
Question is does anyone in the Government realise this? If they do how can they sleep at night? I think the truth is they are asleep at the wheel!
Get with it!
There is a real risk that because they have put their economy on a War footing the Russian may very well smell weakness and fear from our tiny country. With King Charles in charge we seem weak because Sunack and the Hunt Chancellor seem to be living in the 90’s. I can imagine the conversations, dither
Until we get back to 5% of GDP on Defence, I’ll not believe a word of reassurance from any of them.
Some of us here remember how much we spent in times like the 60’s and we had 50,000 men in Germany in BOAR and the Navy and RAF to match when the Soviet Union was our opponent.
What has King Charles got to do with Defence? How does his reign make the nation weak? He is a figurehead Commander-in-Chief.
I don’t think anyone should be living in the 90s, let alone the 60s.
But I agree that we need to spend 5% on Defence in this ‘pre-war world’. A funny term from Shapps given that there are at least 30 armed conflicts going on in the world right now, including a rather large war in Europe.
Absolute madness, sleepwalking to disaster/defeat, numbers/ mass still very much matter and we don’t have them, it will all end in tears.
This most be the only plan the Conservatives has managed to fulfil cutting the military to its bare bones. Even though its the most stupid plan on earth. Rishi will be able to put on his CV how he destroyed the best military in the world to save a few pounds…..
Correct, under labour Army down from 109,000 to 107,000 (loss of 2,000) under the Tories, down to 70,000 (loss of 37,000)
This is one of the most depressing articles I’ve read. So not Friday evening fodder.
There’s a very interesting article in the jan issue of ‘Warships international fleet review ‘
Titled:
Former UK Prime Minister returns to Govt’ by Dr Gary Blackburn
In a nutshell the article is about the reinstatement of Former British PM David Cameron as the new Foreign Secretary. A PM who presided over 2 (disastrous) defence reviews which saw the Harrier fleet axed, the carrier Illustrious axed cut the frigate fleet numbers , get rid of the Nimrod, sold an RFA and whilst he (well Osborne) was forced to continue with the building of the two carriers due to contractual issues , he decided that one would be mothballed (a very familiar term with the Tories) or sold off all this was carried out under the banner of austerity which saw the MOD budget cut by 7% under the thinking that the Uks security could best be served by cutting the miltary.
In 2019 Cameron wrote in his memoir (For the record) regards the gapping of the carrier fleet:
I had a great romantic attachment to the idea that we could fight anywhere in the world to defend our interests. Thanks to these vast mobile platforms. In practice there aren’t many occasions on which we need to project power somewhere that we don’t have a friendly country nearby to base our aircraft in. The only time the absence of an aircraft carrier affected us was during the mission in Libya when we had to use a base in Southern Italy
The article then expands to how Carmerons thinking that the Uk could cut its armed forces in which to save money actually ended up costing it more during the Libyan crisis when a carrier would have allowed for a much closer (and quicker reacting) force.
Then the article relates a very interesting observation. After Assad gassed his own people in 2013 Cameron had a vote in Parliament (rejected by the then Labour Leader Milliband) which rejected any option of action to be taken by the Uk against Syria . This in turn was used by Obama to not carry out any action against Assad . This sent a message to the rest of the world, that Western red lines could be crossed , which resulted a year later with the annexation of the Crimea , chemical weapon use by Assad in 2016, Chinas belligerence in the China sea and against Taiwan, Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine , Venezuela and as we are currently seeing Iran upsetting the apple cart (via its proxies) across the ME be it in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and the Red sea
Questions are also raised about Camerons business links to China, where against all the rest who banned Chinese tech companies access to their communications networks, Cameron set up a so called testing station where all Chinese tech would be checked the only one of its kind in the world. The thing is the place is operated not by British security, but by the Chinese and since its inception not once has it passed its yearly security checks and what have seen regards Chinese belligerence towards the Uk by the Chinese, nothing: be it secret police stations , attacks on citizens by Chinese government workers outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester or even demanding a piano player at St Pancras station do as they demand .
Cameron (and his camp follower) is a dangerous person and the sooner he is removed the better for all
The only way to remove the self-serving egocentric Lord is to vote these muppets out.
We live in a democracy, we have to send the Tories a very loud and clear message. They are not fit to govern and will be out of power for a generation at least. Its time for a change of approach and a change of leadership. I can only hope that Labour under Starmer is going to deliver that change, but it is going to take more than one parliamentary term in office, such is the depth of disastrous policies that need to be fixed. The UK might, if we aren’t defeated in a war emerge in 10-15 years time as a decent country to live in.
Ah nope, There’s essentailly a fag paper between Tories and Labour. Its shocking that only 20% of the political class have ever worked in the private sector which is the only part of the economy that provides wealth through taxation it pays. So 80% have never experienced the real economy where most of us spend our lives, pay our bills and put food on the table. 79% of the working polution work in the private sector. This reveals explain why our political class are broken.
I won’t be voting Tory but I won’t vote Labour either, there’s nothing in their policies that will fix the UK. We’ll see further erosion of freedoms no matter who wins next election. Its not about right or left now its about whether we want a free society or be told how to live by the government, I dread to think where we’ll be in 10-15 years if the current trend continues which is looking likely, we’ll have no freedom left. Told what to eat, where to shop, where to school our kids, forced to consume from government organisations, how to commute, where to holiday, forced to hand more over to the sate in life and death, the list goes on….. and as we’re seeing the more the politcal class fail the more freedoms they remove.
But looking on the plus side, Diversity targets are being smashed left right and centre. 😐
And whilst the service numbers shrink the MoD civil service has actual added 8% more people since 2016.
Not all bad then….
The in power people do not care, they shout a lot but are military is a paper tiger. We have NO AWACS, No long range ground based air defence, No currant IVF, NO ship mounted land attack system, No ship mounted anti ship missile. Our tube Arty is out ranged,No special forces aircraft. No defense surpresion aircraft. etc etc, what a joke. More leave the military than join it and we are for ever await spares for 40 year old kit.
Would anyone know where these figures come from? British Army in 2023, 76,950. Sorry, but I cant help but use flowery language… that’s utter bollocks!
Tom, why do you challenge that figure? Its in the ballpark of where I would expect it to be.
Reg Army is in the middle of downsizing from 83,000 to 73,000 established posts, so strength will be i that bracket but somewhat down on that as we know army is not fully recruited. c77k sounds right. Not saying I like that figure – we should have an army of 120k – but it seems accurate.
Well its not all cuts the MoD civil service has increased in size by 8% since 2016. And what exceptional value we’re see for that increase 😀. Thats 4000 added or enough to man 40 T32 frigates. Happy days!!!! And if that’s not bad enoguh roll on a Labour government who have such a great track record in slashing the civil service.
Any sign of the number of MPs shrinking by 30% since 2000? They are seemingly immune to cuts elsewhere in the public sector.