During a recent House of Lords debate, Baroness Smith of Newnham (Liberal Democrat) pressed the Government for clarity on key defence issues, including the decommissioning of military equipment, procurement plans, and the impact of rising costs on the defence industry, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Praising the Armed Forces and the bipartisan commitment to their support, the Baroness remarked, “We owe them a duty to ensure that defence expenditure means that the equipment for our Armed Forces is the best appropriate and that we are putting the right resources into defence.”
However, she noted lingering uncertainties in the Government’s strategic defence review, particularly around when the commitment to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence would be implemented. “We do not know at this point when the 2.5% is going to be introduced, so that is an uncertainty,” she said.
Baroness Smith sought answers regarding the recent push to decommission military equipment, questioning whether these decisions were driven by rising maintenance costs or long-term strategic planning.
“Could the Minister say whether the decommissioning of equipment is being done now because the Secretary of State has discovered that the time has come and, in fact, it would cost more to keep these ships and other pieces of kit operational? How much is the decommissioning going to cost?” she asked.
She also queried whether decommissioning formed part of a broader review process, asking for transparency on what the Secretary of State and military leadership were considering.
Turning her attention to the defence industrial base, Baroness Smith expressed concerns over how increased national insurance costs might affect SMEs. “While the primes might be able to take that as relatively small change, is that true of the sub-primes? What impact will it have on the small and medium-sized enterprises so vital for the defence industry?” she asked.
Highlighting the broader relationship between defence spending and the economy, she noted the potential for a virtuous cycle, where a growing economy supports greater defence spending. However, she warned, “If the defence sector and the economy as a whole go into decline… what impact is that going to have on our defence expenditure?”
Baroness Smith emphasised the need for greater transparency and robust planning to ensure both the Armed Forces and the defence industry receive the support they need.
“These are some clear questions that we need to understand. They are not intended to be unhelpful, but simply to ask whether we are really giving the support needed to the defence industrial base,” she concluded.
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These initial cuts feel like another attempt to prepare us for deeper defence cuts following the SDR in spring.
the budget has already been increased for next year by £2.9 billion and the government is committed to increasing it beyond that up to 2.5% so why do you think their will be defence cuts? what evidence are you basing your feeling on?
Because they’re a labour government, and that means they’re no different to a conservative one.
All politicians lie
That’s not really much of a quantitative basis to form an opinion.
Agreed
Various questions arise here so just a few of my immediate thoughts. I am hoping that moves to decommission platforms is more about better more focused spend of the saved money elsewhere in the short term where the budget will remain likely restrained before we build up increasing expenditure thereafter. Though it has to be said making these decisions now when the Review equally is seen already to be used apparently as cover for other decisions with the claim they can’t be made now (ie in terms of reassurance) due to it, is hardly a good look, or even suggests… Read more »
Because the £2.9 billion was not new money and the 2.5 per cent is still in the realms of dreamland Jim. Also we are already having cuts made. Watchkeeper probably makes sense; Albion and Bulwark questionable but the helicopters being cut is just another reduction in capabilities without a committment to thier replacements.
The overall spend is almost neither here nor there. What matters most for cuts is the amount spent on UK conventional defence capability. Anything spent on operations, on Ukraine, on pensions, on nuclear all subtract from the headline figure, before we get to people and to conventional procurement and maintenance. And the effect of cuts can be delayed by a long time. If you order 16 frigates when the budget is at 4%, you find yourself in a pickle trying to replace them twenty five years later when the spend is at 2.5% — even though the cut to 2.5%… Read more »
good piece, Jon well written. The Typhoon tranche 1 point is particularly relevant.
Jim, isn’t most of the increase to fund the supply of weapons to the Ukriane?
The budget is going up, some systems will inevitably be cut in the SDR as nothing lasts forever and systems become obsolete, but it should be a net gain.
I understand that the uavs maybe not fit for the Army, but couldn’t they be used for other departments/organisations? Or are they just that crap.
Well, 7 or 8 have crashed so far depending on where you look and I don’t recall ever reading an article that really said anything other than they’re a waste of money or “troubled” to some extent.
Didn’t they come from a very successful Israeli design? Loads of articles about how poor they are but nothing that explains exactly why they became so poor considering they were supposed to be upgrades. ‘Upgrades’ seem to be a recurring problem with British programmes as we have seen epitomised by Ajax. So is there an inherent recurring problem at and around the MoD and the processes involved, general over expectation and gold plating or just bad luck in an inevitably risky developmental environment. But I agree this has been an area that has gone from Stone Age to the jet… Read more »
The Hermes 450 didn’t carry an SAR so the army played around with it asking Thales to tweak it to take IMaster, calling the result Watchkeeper. When the Israelis upgraded their drones to Hermes 900 in about 2012, and we didn’t follow. The Hermes 900 also takes an SAR, so we could have moved over, but we prefered our own tweaking. Before long, all manufacturer’s upgrades applied to the new drones and the Hermes 450 became obsolescent, Watchkeeper along with it. It might be a little worrying that we recently bought into Camcopter, which didn’t carry an SAR, and asked… Read more »
I don’t see how a drone like that can be obsolescent if the radar is okay.
It is not like that drones in that class have significant more performance.
Recently, in Oman, they used GMTI radar they’ve recently had added to queue targets for Apache.
That sounds good to me?
Our last asset with this was Sentinel, and that was thrown away as well.
If there was a will, box them up and give the entire regiment to the Reserves forming a Regiment from IT professionals, gamers, Drone flyers, whatever.
If they’re ever needed now, they’re gone.
I believe IMaster comes with GMTI as standard these days. Those on Watchkeepers may have needed an upgrade at some point; however the two naval Peregrines should have it when flying over the shoreline.
It is a very old platform. You can well imagine how out of date the computers on board are. So you are then in a situation of do you bear the whole cost of reengineering round new processors. With Protector etc there is a large user base to spread R&D over – in this case just army. Then the is the issue of packages that it can carry. Those too are individual to Watch Keeper…. Then you get to its not very stellar ability to stay in the sky…so do you want valuable payloads on it or even to be… Read more »
i agree, no issue scrapping these drones and unfortunately a very old T23. It amazes me the British Army that’s apparently starved for cash did not get rid of these drones years ago.
While Albion class has no real position in modern amphibious warfare I agree scrapping them before MRSS is ready send the wrong message and for a measly £9 million a year savings.
I’m not too bothered on the helicopters as we do have a large fleet of Chinook by anyone’s standards.
The disposal of the LPD,s , the Waves and chinooks save a a ridiculous few million of pounds but send a message , the current government as the previos one is not interested in defence , so our enemies as Russia , China, North Korea or Argentina can be ready to attack Britain without an adequate answer. It,s a very dangerous action.
Should the army have got rid of its Watchkeeper drones before getting replacements?
Old kit is better than no kit.
To be fair they could procure a decent off the shelf class 3 drone for next Tuesday if they really wanted it.
Not too bothered. You do surprise me. Chinooks at 75, then 60, then 51 now 14 to be disposed of; 14 new ER type to be ordered but no order. Also Puma to be discarded and no new order for the Medium lift Helicopter. More defence cuts?
Only thing I would say is Merlin is not really a medium rotor replacement, although classed as a medium rotor it’s on the border between medium and heavy lift..your traditional battlefield medium rotor is a 10-12,000ib empty 20-22,000Ib max weight ..Merlin is 23,000Ib empty, max weight 33,000Ib…it’s a big old rotor designed for long range and carting torpedoes and ASW equipment for distance and loiter time.
The whole argument about these cuts is ridiculous but please don’t add to the downright lies being told about the LPDs. The Bay class vessels that are to be retained are in every way inferior in amphibious warfare ops to the Albion class. They have no command control or HQ capability, less capacity for stores and embarked military force, less than 20% of the landing craft and are not built to warship standards. Please do not mention that they can carry a helicopter because you could put a ‘tent’ on the LPDs if required. We have insufficient crew for the… Read more »
Spot on.
Indeed those drones are very out of date, in reality drone tec is changing so quickly that at present even if you’re not using and losing them in war you need to really be considering class 1-3 drones as essentially assets with a 2-5 year life cycle and procure with that in mind. So off the shelf, modest priced and just enough to allow your formations and teams to practice the craft of using them, with a clear path to mass purchase if you ever go to war. Re the other cuts, 1) With the rotors I would imagine that… Read more »
Hi Jonathan
I don’t really have an issue with a smaller Chinook fleet, I believe many are in storage anyway. I agree we need the Puma replacement confirmed in SDR 25. My primary concern is the lack of a Trance 1 Typhoon replacements- goodbye at least one sqn in SDR 25!.
Re your point on return to 24 surface escorts, I just cant see them finding the money, 19 will be the number. Hope I’m proven wrong in SDR 25 though!
Interestingly , the RAN is planning to expand their surface fleet to 20. And off course circa 8 SSNs.
SB, re your observation
“the retirement of a rusted through T23 are the ones that make sense to me.” Might I add the Typhoon TI fleet?
Anyway , hope you’re well Sir!
they are crap and expensive and no other government department has a need for artillery spotting. These drones can’t fly in bad weather and represent a potential danger. No civilian organization would accept them.
Militarily they are worse than useless for anything other than low end counter insurgency work which we have a much better solution to with other drones.
The big picture on these cuts is that every Whitehall department has been told to shave its expenditure, to help get the public finances under control. Each of the services has been asked to come up with some limited savings. RAF has gone for withdrawing Puma force, Army for scrapping Watchkeeper, RN for divesting itself of 5 older ships. This is Treasury housekeeping, it is quite separate from the SDSR. Of course it is regrettable, adding to a long list of kit that has been retired without replacement, particularly notable over the last 14 years. However, some of it will… Read more »
One very interesting point you made and needs to be remembered is that in year budget is the driving force. A programme may be agreed ( say 5 billion pounds) but that does not mean the money is set aside to allow that to be commissioned in the most timely and efficient way possible. Instead a ( limited ) in year budget will be allocated and that means that the in year budget may not allow for timely or even efficient delivery of the programme.
That’s a really good summary piece Cripes
However, you missed one essential point, what will replace the Typhoon Tranche 1?