The United Kingdom, it appears, has trimmed its defence budget.
Despite the ongoing war in Europe and rising global tensions, the UK’s financial blueprint for the upcoming year has conspicuously left out additional funding for its armed forces in order to impact concerns like inflation.
This decision has sparked concerns over the potential weakening of the nation’s military capabilities and its stance alongside allies.
The official budget documents disclosed on Wednesday show that defence spending in the UK is expected to witness a decrease of £2.5 billion in the financial year ending March 2025 compared to the prior 12 months. This development is alarming, especially as the Defence Secretary has issued stark warnings that the UK is navigating a “pre-war world”, with both adversaries and allies boosting their defence expenditures. Nevertheless, the Treasury’s latest budget seems to neglect the urgent necessity for enhanced military funding.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has attempted to mitigate concerns by stating that the apparent reduction does not reflect additional funding allocated last autumn, as well as ongoing support to Ukraine.
Nonetheless, the lack of new defence spending initiatives has elicited criticisms, with Malcolm Chalmers, Deputy Director General of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), pointing out the UK’s deviation from the defence strategies of its allies.
Chalmers stated, “One of the striking things in a comparative perspective is that the UK is just about the only major European country which is not increasing its defence budget in real terms, and one of the few European countries which is also not increasing its military assistance to Ukraine much in real terms. But the fact is that now, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many European countries are increasing their defence budgets rapidly, including Germany, the Scandinavian countries, the exposed eastern countries and quite a number of others as well.”
A MoD spokesperson has contended that the defence budget is projected to grow by 0.9% in the year ending March 2025, yet critics maintain that the plans effectively amount to a cut in essential defence spending. This contention is further complicated by ambiguities in the budget documents, including unclear accountancy adjustments and the contentious inclusion of Ukraine aid within the UK’s defence budget figures.
The breakdown by department of government spending indicates a reduction in the Ministry of Defence’s day-to-day running costs and other resource-related expenditures (Resource Departmental Expenditure Limit, or RDEL) from £35 billion this financial year to £32.8 billion for the year to March 2025. Similarly, capital expenditure (Capital Departmental Expenditure Limit, or CDEL) is forecasted to diminish from £19.2 billion to £18.9 billion over the same period.
Despite these adjustments, which include £2.5 billion in new assistance to Ukraine as well as other funding announced in the Autumn Statement, the core MoD budget evidently faces a reduction.
This is especially contentious amid the current conflict in Europe, with critics arguing that it reflects a misjudgement in resource allocation. While the UK’s aid to Ukraine is welcomed by most in defence, the decrease in the MoD’s RDEL and CDEL highlights a troubling direction. Less cash is available to already underfunded forces.
This is in stark contrast to many of the UK’s NATO allies, who are actively increasing their defence budgets.
I’m not looking forward to the day when we are so poor that we have to choose between the Nuclear Deterrent or the NHS.
We have been increasing the NHS budget at a consistently faster rate than our economy has been growing ever since the former’s inception. We obviously can’t afford to keep doing that, and the unwillingness to face reality up to this point is a major reason why practically every other area of necessary government spending is being short-changed.
Unfortunately you’re absolutely right. Someone has to have a serious look at making the NHS viable, or will literally bankrupt us eventually
The costs of the nuclear deterrent should also be looked at too. Does anyone check why it all costs so much and if any of it could be done cheaper?
Would help if governments didn’t delay submarine replacement resulting in 500 million refit costs for old boats.
Design AUKUS subs with vertical launch tubes. Add a nuclear tipped FCAS option. Field a single fleet of 12 AUKUS subs on premises 3 are at sea at any one time each with 6 x nuc tipped FCAS. Economies of scale on sub fleet, more than 1 x basket for the eggs and enough punch to make anyone think twice.
Same FCAS can then also be launched from RAF fleet…strike and P8.
The reason we don’t do that is that the SSBNs need to go and hide in the deep water away from any real possibility of detection in order to guarantee the second strike capability, while the SSNs are tasked with anti-ship and land attack missions in the littoral that imply an acceptance that they are potentially in harm’s way.
1 x ssn can do that with a heavier nuc load out while 2 are playing SSN in littoral..
Current SSBN systems don’t ‘guarantee’. 2 x Ballistic launch failures over 8 years and everyone is pursuing anti ballistic capabilities. …Where will those capabilities be in 25 years
SSNs don’t have a ‘nuc load out’.
Did you read the trail…..might help
Thats not really helping! SSNs do not have nuclear weapons.
Again.. did you not read the thread. Please try to keep up..hypothetical question with a hypothetical answer that might bring economies of scale, adequate effectiveness and redundancy allowing increased conventional spending in other areas
…..meanwhile the UK keeps sliding into pool of incapability and irrelevance
I might give up trying to keep up. I did read the thread. I still do not know why you said ‘1 x ssn can do that with a heavier nuc load out…’ and you still have not explained why you think a SSN has nuclear missiles.
They don’t have today. We all know that. The thread started with concept of could FCASh having a Nuc warhead as an option. Vreat AUKUS subs with vertical launch tubes ( As US does already with their SSN) and operate a larger interchangeable fleet of 12 boats rather than two very distinct classes with all the pressure smaller fleets being on maintenance v availability etc.
The same FCAS can then be an option for frontline combat aircraft.
Redundancy
Economies of scale
Reliability
And with a punch that, while it does not represent Armageddon for the planet, is sufficient to cripple and deter adversaries.
Bottom line.
Uk is broke,
Trident has proven to be unreliable ( for the only operational detterent system…not a development system!)
Thr conventional forces lack mass, hitting power and are stuck on a perpetual state of rolling capability gap with a mod belief system centred on wars of the future being short term, far away and with time to reconfigure things before heading off.
My God…if Trump gets in Europe and / UK may have to stand on its own….
What Risk Hungary blocking EU cooperation with UK. Unlikely but consequences would be huge.
If the only option was Armageddon would Putin call the bluff…maybe
OK, thanks. I regret the demise of tac nukes in the UK inventory. We had these in the Cold War, even when our conventional forces were ‘strong’. I served in BAOR many times. We fully expected the Warsaw Pact to roll us up if the war went hot. To know that we could use tac nukes in extremis to stem the tide was (bizarrely) reassuring.
I agree that the weakness of our strategic system comprising one at-sea bomber boat with a reduced number of tubes and warheads and with 2 failed test launches in a row – is very alarming. We need at least one other different strategic system.
If Putin gets in he cannot arbitrarily decide to leave NATO – Congress passed a Bill in mid-Dec to prevent that. But he could withdraw the US from the integrated military structure as de Gaulle did – France was a non-effective NATO member from 1967-2009.
I agree. We need regrettably to get back into the tactical nuke business yesterday.
The Russians never lost their tactical N ability. We are so negligent in what we do. I’m thinking it might be better to scrap the strategic deterrent and go all in with tactical and semi strategic! Destroying the world is not an option but flattening 1000 acres of central Moscow might be a useful idea especially if Putin is there with his chums.
Jonno, I think you are right on all counts. But, so hard politically to increase our nuclear capability when HMG was progressively reducing our (strategic) warhead count. Which major party will put that in this years election manifesto!
Always harder to get that genie back in the bottle.
It was perhaps also a mistake to disband UKMWO, the ROC and to sell off all of the nuclear bunkers meant for continuance of Government. We have zero Civil Defence now, to go with zero ABM protection.
Strategically & tactically, deploying nuclear weapons on the Hunter-Killers will impinge on the Hunter-Killers primary roles while reducing any of the sub-optimal deterrent effect of the FCAS missile, considering range, payload and probability of interception (in comparison to a SLBM).
Agree the present fleet size given the eastern threats to the West, a much larger (by a factor of 3-4 times) could easily be justifiable (and needed).
In the event of a potential conflict requiring the release of nuclear weapons, the SSBNs could deploy two SSBNs and even the third could have a role, depending on the number of actual in-service warheads (this is the ultimate limiting factor in realising the full potential of the deployable D5 missiles).
Day 1 Faslane is hit by saturation cruise missile attack. There are probably no boats 2, 3 or 4 to follow. It’s 1 x basket.
Having, a fleet of 12 SSN allows a couple of those boats to be designated detterent boats at any 1 time with all 12 rotating the role. Stops the maintenance pressure on an aging fleet of 4.
Same weapon can be deployed via strike aircraft.
Discussion is not about is SSN a better weapon. Discussion was …can an effective deterrent be fielded for less capex / opex facilitating improved capability funding in conventional areas.
Russian systems will generally endeavour to counter US Technology. Is their merit in following an alternative path ?
I doubt ballistic missiles will be guaranteed effective in 25 years time.
Blue sky thoughts on basis the UK is Struggling economically to fund its publically stated global role to the point that conventional capabilities are barely credible.
If the RN needs to rely on swapping out CIWS between each of their UKP 3.5 billion carriers then In an increasingly hostile world the status quo is neither sustainable nor prudent.
Something has to change.
You fail to understand that a SLBM vs cruise missile discussion is akin to bringing a knife to a gun fight.
Indulging the ill-conceived scenario:
You are talking sense. We need things that we can afford and are ready at 48 hours notice. The Carriers should be redeployed to Portland, Invergordon, Loch Ewe or even Scapa and the Clyde. Parking them in Portsmouth is becoming highly problematic. Its impractical to take so long to get out into the Solent. They should be Parked facing seaward at 2 hours notice. We are in a Cold war situation and we should be ready like in the 1960-1980’s.
Because HMG like their friends in the UK Defence industry to have their snouts nicely in the trough.
Exactly that. Same as in every area of government. Record profits & bonuses, oay rises for their clique, but record taxes & poverty, dismal services for the rest of us. Corrupt.
The Lib Dems, when in coalition, looked at whether CASD could be done with 3 boats and concluded that it could not.
Wasn’t that looking to do it with 3 SSBN’s though, the OP is suggesting having 12 SSN’s with CASD capabilities with 3 boats at sea at any one time.
Yes. CASD uses SSBNs. The Lib Dems looked at whether it could be done with 3 boats rather than 4. There was no discussion by them on SSNs.
Not sure how you can build CASD capabilities into an SSN (ie convert a SSN to be a SSBN). That does not sound possible or affordable.
Even Labour have said NHS % of day to day spending can’t keep rising.
It is at a point where it is strangling everything else that is wealth creating like education.
The other big one is social care which is also out of control.
Too many old people, what to do?
Well, you could increase National Insurance a little bit to cover the escalating costs of looking after the increasingly elderly population…Oh stupid me, they need to cut that to try to bribe voters.
National insurance is just a tax like income tax, the money raised by NI goes into the same pool as income tax it is not hypothecated as the name indicates.
Too many Sick people.
The West went in to the Great Financial Crisis 2008 about 1 year after the US working age population went into contraction, this represented a paradigmatic shift. As this cohort grows the economy grows with it. As it shrinks so does the economy and this growth or shrinkage compounds over the years. This is why we are all about £12k poorer in the post-GFC paradigm than before it.
The working age population is going to keep shrinking for decades while retirees grow. The population pyramid is upside down and over the next decades its going to get substantially worse.
It is impossible for the working population to financially support the retirees. To maintain the same worker to retiree ratio we have now would require 19m new people by 2040.
So, absent another Greater London we need the equivalent GDP growth of that number to keep the status quo. That’s not going to happen.
If we want growth and not to force the youth into radical poverty then their disposable income needs to grow. In other words we need to shrink the size of the state slightly faster than the working population shrinks. But then what about funding the NHS and pensions for all the retired people? I don’t see how we can do that without taxing them more and the wealth they have accrued.
I don’t like inheritance tax, I don’t like capital gains taxes on house sales but we are no-longer in an era of growth and it is simply unjust to load what are now excesses and poor economic planning on the youth of today and their children.
If you have alternative ideas for fixing this, please let me know because I can’t work it out – it looks like an impending disaster to me that’s going to destroy most of the G20. We have it bad in the UK but China, S. Korea, Japan, most of the EU (including Germany) etc. are in a worse state.
Unfortunately it’s not the NHS, it’s the western demand for healthcare every system in the west is becoming more and more costly…it’s the fault of the population I’m afraid…a population that is proudly unhealthy yet through medical intervention lives to an average of 82…the only way to sustain that is throw more and more money…we either die younger or live far healthier lives that’s the only way to reduce costs in a meaningful way.
Actually dying abruptly from something like a massive and unexpected heart attack with few prior symptoms would be the most cost-effective outcome from the NHS standpoint. Maybe it should be prescribing cigarettes, alcohol and stress.
Ian sorry mate but a bad lifestyle does not generally lead to an abrupt sudden end..smoking and drinking and eating to much ultra processed foods generally gives you years and years of suffering from long term conditions….The really healthy older people are the ones that suddenly peg it from a catastrophic event.
I’m Ex Forces and 61. I drink and smoke but feel It is a good idea to have enough mass in military terms to feel save that all our liberties can have a credible defence. When I left the R.A.F. in 1989 it had over 85000 personnel.
I probably won’t get to 70 and have a bad knee that our NHS say is fine! All that happy clapping the NHS during COVID makes me angry. It is their JOB!!!!
Yes but unfortunately there are more and more old people and thats costs more and more,,young people cost the nhs very little…old people cost a lot….yes it’s the NHS job but we have to pay them to do the job and I’m afraid mark the British public have underpaid for their health constantly….simply put you have to pay what it costs and we don’t….your new knee would cost you £15,000 anywhere…the government pays the NHS around £5,000 that’s why your waiting..if the government paid close to mark rates it would be done quicker…
Also with knees, they are iffy things…I’m in the same boat as you but mine went when I was 45 ( end stage osteoarthritis in the medial compartment…basically bone on Bone for the last 20 years from a snowboarding accident)…but the big issue with knees is the following ( and why the nhs can be iffy about giving them out if you are under say 65)
1) even your first primary knee replacement is not generally very good and has a high level of not working properly….having a knee replacement is a dice roll…you have reasonable odds it will be better but it could be worse…so unless your completely shot and have no function left I the knee the advice is take the pain ( and take it from me I know the pain).
2) your average knee replacement will last only around 15 years before it wears out …then it needs what is called revision…the first replacement involves chopping the bone down and replacing with a big metal thing that has a massive spike in it down into your bone….to revise it you then have to chop that metal joint out and securing spike out..chop a load more bone out and replace with an even bigger hunk of metal…that revision is usually not very good or functional at all..it will probably wear out after 10 years….you cannot replace a revision and so your then fucked….basically a knee at best from a knee replace you will if lucky get 15 ok years have a revision and get 10 poor years before your immobilised….average life expectancy is 82 so they like to leave it as long as possible…..
but the simple truth is all the evidence around knee replacement surgery is that it’s not great and that means for people like you and me we have to live with chronic pain and only get it replaced when we are at a point we almost cannot walk anymore…..or you can go private and pay £15,000 as they will take your money and leave it to the NHS to sort out if it all goes wrong.
everyone is always yes take it off the NHS it’s paid so fortun it needs to be more efficient…..sorry the reality is ( and I can give you untold numbers of academic papers on this) we pay sod all for our healthcare compared to most of the western world and those that pay less generally do so because they get less ( Spain pays less but it’s health system does not provide you with care in hospital as your relatives are expected to wash, dress, feed and care for you in hospital). Yes we could pay the NHS less but then we will have to all accept we will die younger and not be treated for many things…..I’m happy to have that conversation…..but the “we want everything for everyone and we will live how we like and expect to be sorted out” cannot be said in the same sentence as it cost to much…..efficiency in healthcare can only come from prevention….otherwise it will take a huge amount…
as for dying at seventy…sorry mate you cannot say that…you could smoke drink and sore knee life into your 80s and cost the NHS fortune in care that someone will need to pay…that’s life…
The biggest problem with the NHS is that it is seen as the catch all solution for all the other dumb decisions and bad practices we have in society and business. Two examples:
1. Build poor quality houses or badly maintain them and you get damp and mold which in turn leads to a huge bill for the treatment of lung and respiratory conditions;
2. Ultra processed food has been in the news this week as a paper was published in a UK medical journal (can’t remember which one) that reported the results of a review into a large number of smaller research studies. The number of people included in the research was reportedly in the 100’s of thousands so a statistically robust sample. Statistically, some of the ultra processed stuff we eat could be as bad for us as smoking..! However, before anyone can do anything about the research has to be carried out to identify a direct cause and effect. We have been looking more closely at ingredients lately and isn’t easy to avoid the suspect ingredients… So I wonder how many of the huge increase in cancers are down to what we eat?
I’m sure we could find far more examples where we have created a system that off loads cost and responsibility leaving the NHS to pick up the pieces.
Others have said we should live healthier lives. I agree, but trying to find out what is ultra processed and what isn’t is a lot harder than we thought it would be. If we want people to take responsibility, then the system has to empower them to make changes by providing the right information in an easily understandable and accessible format and creating and enforcing standards so that everyone lives up to their responsibilities e.g. landlords provide safe and decent housing.
Finally, according to one of the many think tanks if earning had continued to improve post 2008 as they had prior to the financial crash the average income would been £14,000 higher today. That would be a heck of an up lift in GDP. Of course COVID would cut that back somewhat, but even so we have clearly been racing for the bottom. Further envidenced by the awful lack of investment and the resulting poor productivity. We are trailing very badly when it comes to the number of industrial ‘robots’ per 1000 workers…
So much to put right is seems.
Cheers CR
Indeed and bad health choices are baked into our society…food is a real issue…the truth is almost everything on our supermarket shelf’s are ultra processed…the food industry peddles poison as food simply because it makes more money…cheaper ingredients as well as increased shelf life….even your loaf of bread is full of ultra processed ingredients simply to make it feel fresh for 2 weeks..actual bread feels stale after a couple of days.
The evidence base on ultra process foods is clear it’s profoundly bad and poisons every system in the body and is the cause of our long term conditions epidemic..which is the thing which is causing health costs to spiral…
sadly it’s easier to try and pretend we overpay the NHS than it is to call out the food industry.
I’d be careful with that line of argument, if you’re arguing that high public spending is a western phenomenon, and simultaneously a problem.
GDP (gross income, in effect), is the sum of all economic activity. In GDP terms the public sector is pary of the income generation formula. Public sector finances are usually taken as part of the reason *for* that level of income.
Trivially, you can imagine a country with no health system, education, roads or sanitation. It would be extremely poor.
Health care is no different. Keeping people healthy means keeping people at work.
If you take the tack that public spending is a life style choice, then equally yoi can argue defence, roads, rail, education, waste collection, are also choices. As a advocate of an effective and right sized defence sector, I’d be very nervous about asking voters to ‘make a choice’, as the NHS would win out over defence.
One cannot demand ‘special pleading’ for defence, and simultaneously ask the public to make cuts in their most popular public service. It’s a losing wicket.
Thank you for this reasoned responses to a flood of extreme right wing politics.
I would only add that both defence capability and health provision are extensively privatised, always have been, and that when unregulated profits and bonuses are taken out of an economy largely funded by taxation, a massive inefficiency is inevitably built in. And there is no assurance that privatised provision means better quality. £25m to repair a prop shaft, anyone? Both new carriers out of service at the same time, with two modern frigates decomissioned because of recruitment failures? What a waste. Meanwhile cost of a standard procedure like a hip replacement in a privatised health system as in the US is several times higher than in the NHS. Largely because a privatised system limits the opportunities for strong negotiation by a single large customer, and you lose economies of scale in purchasing.
Plus all of this discussion assumes that managing a national economy is like managing a household. The nature and function of debt is completely different in the two situations. Much as most of us regret it, private households don’t have access to quantitative easing.
I did not say it’s a problem what I have said that to think you can have low spending on health is delusional…healthcare costs will rise exponentially and will be the dominant cost in our system because:
1) we are living longer and have a very large elderly population and the older you are the more expensive you are…young people cost the health services almost nothing…most of your healthcare bill is in the last decade of your life.
2) our population is profoundly unhealthy and this is driving up costs exponentially..we are living longer but far more unhealthy lives and become dependent on the healthcare system to keep us alive..
simply put we have to accept that if we want to live to 80 and eat the crap poison that we all insist on eating and drinking then we will be paying 13-15% GDP for a health system….if we don’t pay that we will all die younger…
what we cannot do is live in our present delusional state in which we get older and more unhealth…expect the health system to treat us with new treatments and keep us alive longer…but not pay more and more….
It is the NHS culture and many “non profit” organisations, many of them that receive money from Goverment.
For example:
UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, a collaboration of several dozen health organizations which has received £110 million from the British government since 2017.(…)
There are over 100000 activist organisations in UK with a growth in number of 27% over past decade. This is a huge economy sector which productivity is very low and live from taxpayers if even many of them have an agenda against most taxpayers.
(data from fee.org)
Another example is education.
Why education is not much more efficient? Cut years on that.
Unfortunately we are all getting older and sicker…it’s either pay the money or suffer. Simple truth, I’ve worked for the NHS for 27 years, this is the year I leave as I will no longer be part of a system that is catastrophically failing. The primary reason it’s catastrophically failing is this country will not admit or accept how much healthcare costs….just because you don’t want it to cost what it costs will never make it any cheaper. The UK literally lives in a delusional state in regards to the cost of healthcare. The NHS gets paid around £4500 per knee replacement…the cost of a knee replacement in the private sector in the UK is around £13-15,000, the German healthcare system charges around £15,500 France around £12,000 and the US £27,000.
The simple fact is the NHS has provided the Uk with a reasonable standard of healthcare over the past 75ish years for many many hundreds of billions pounds less than any other system…what will you have in its place ? A fully private system will cost the nation around 3 times what it costs now…a social security bases system as France and Germany around 30-50% more…
keeping a population alive into their 80s when that population insists on living a profoundly unhealthy lifestyle ( drinking, eating processed food, working in jobs that are low exercise and high stress) is always going to be expensive.the only way to really reduce the cost is:
1) not provide healthcare to the old or those with significant long term conditions….or the let people die approach ( almost all of the costs of healthcare are spend on the older generation 65+ and or those with more than 1 long term condition)…
2) enforce healthy lives..ban highly processed foods, enforce exercise, don’t treat overweight or people with poor fitness.
3) force relatives to look after their own ( this is the Spanish system…in hospitals you are expected to come in and wash, dress, feed your loved ones the hospital do not pay for nursing and care staff to do this)…force social care on relatives…force them to treat there own…do there own medical care etc.
Anything else is just shifting the costs..
1) at present the NHS is paying a lot because of lack of social care…in extra admissions or long stays in hospital beds. Or GPS having to sort social issue..so the NHS could manage better without this burden..but someone has to pay the social care bill..this actually needed an extra 2p on national insurance according to the conservative government when they were actually trying to run the country.
2) moving to a different funding model, say private insurance…the best example of this is the US ….it pays something like 16% of its GDP to healthcare…half of that is via taxation ( more per head than the UK pays the NHS by the way) for basic healthcare for the poor and veterans..half is via private funding for the rest ( again a second set of funding that is more again the the NHS gets per person).
so yes by all means look at NHS viability..but that means we either don’t treat some people or they or their employers pay for it and that’s alway going to cost more…as the NHS suppresses market forces in healthcare….which are profound…..as health could be the most profitable of businesses ( it is in the states…it’s just the US public and government that suffer the costs of that profitability). If your looking for efficiency…all the internal studies show the NHS is already in the top 1-3 of health systems…and savings just make it more inefficient by moving the health burden around.
I would be interested to know German and scandinavian healthcare costs as they seem to have more beds doctors and healthcare
the German system in 2023 was £6200 per person, Norway £6000 per person Uk was £3085 so Germany and Norway spends around double, France spends £5100 around £US spends around four times the Uk spend. Even Italy spends more than we do at £3400 and they have a very very healthy population and a far more limited system..The only health services in Europe than spend less are either old eastern block countries…with low wages and almost second world systems and Spain as its system does not do a lot of stuff ( relatives are expected to provide the care for people not nursing staff).
No, quite wrong if you’re trying to improve wealth generation, those eligible to pay taxes, and ultimately armed forces budgets. See also my post above.
If you’re looking at financial sustainability, you need to look at *productivity*, and resolve the issue as to why UK productivity is so poor and still declining.
Sick days are an important (very major) part of this. True, if one were to disregard care for the non productive (retirees for example), one would still need to improve health care for people of working age, and that means reducing waiting lists and waiting times.
I say this as an economist, and none of what I have written here implies that I would morally support reduction of health care to the elderly.
Reduction of NHS spending per se, and as we have seen in the last 15 years, worsens economic performance.
Productivity isn’t necessarily about getting more done. It can also be about getting the same amount done using fewer people. That drives down demand for labour and reduces wages. So you end up with fewer people in work earning less money and the money going to pay for tech to create the productivity increase and to repay those who lent the money to invest in the tech, and if you are really lucky going into retraining the unemployed. This is not a good thing in the short term. The trick is to increase demand alongside the technology investment to increase productivity sustainably. To me the best way is through innovation.
Look at countries like the US and you’ll find a lower percentage of people of a working age who actually work. In the US the employment rate is 60%, in the UK it’s 75%. So productivity measured across all working age people is better in the UK, but that’s not the way it’s measured. Right now we have the opposite problem to the US, a lack of investment because we have more people willing to work.
The question for me is why are we also lagging behind German productivity, whose employment rate is roughly the same as ours? How did they get demand so high?
I wouldn’t disagree with much of what you’ve written here. The principal reason for high German productivity is investment per capita (I had the figures somewhere but can’t lay hands on).
So, as you said, if you do the same amount with fewer people, or more with the same, productivity per head goes up, which means overheads as a proportion of sales goes down (or as one colleague succinctly puts it fewer bullshit jobs per capita). This is scarcely mentioned in the mainstream media, but is a crucial component, as it grows GDP whilst improving competitiveness.
By comparison, private sector dividends have continued to be paid out in many firms when sales volumes have dropped. This is an anathema to anyone that truly believes in the power of market economics.
This decline in investment (and productivity) has gone hand in hand with high rewards. This behaviour also happens in the US btw, but doesn’t in Germany.
This doesn’t necessarily fix the problem of improving pay for skilled jobs (and thence improve tax yield), but it shod create appropriate conditions.
Taking into account inflation there is a real terms reduction on the last financial years NHS spending. But you can reduce your personal burden on the state and use private if you can afford to. Complex care for cancer etc costs a lot of money. The civil service even offer a healthcare plan now as the NHS has been cut to the bone. As a scary comparison, childbirth costs $14-$26k uninsured in the US. Diabetes alone costs approx $14k per head in the USA with an eyewatering $412b cost of diagnosed cases. Chucking money away on consortiums who evaporate when things go wrong needs to be looked at along with any public servant who miraculously joins a company who they were involved in procurement for.
Stepped means testing is the way forward.
For instance if people are able to pay they should pay up to a certain amount say a reasonable cap depending on their circumstances and age. The very young and very old should get a free pass.
One of the problems is that large sections of the population are now very housebound and unfit by tradition etc.
People should try to keep fit esp if over 70.
I suspect that is what is behind Hunt’s ambition to eliminate NI. By implication he is taking aim at the NHS and State Benefits which originally were funded by NI.
You can only do so much by focussing on efficiency improvements. To control any budget you have to identify and focus on the cost drivers. The problem is that UK culture has successfully trained the population in behaviours which make them ill.
The NHS certainly needs to be reformed with a long term cross party plan along with social care.
Jonathan of this parish has discussed the issues with the NHS with great authority on many occasions.
These needs to be a cohesive 50 year plan for both, alas it will never happen when we have two parties that don’t give toss.
Electioneering, pandering to their core votes and one parliament 5 year plans is all they care about. Neither are fit for purpose.
The ‘massive’ bloated Social security budget is unaffordable and just keeps growing too…
I’m afraid not. The idea that it’s some sort if nice to have, lifestyle thing is for the birds.
The NHS is a crucial part of our national human logistics. It keeps people in work and keep the economy moving.
It is no more ‘cuttable’ than roads, rail, manufacturing, or staff training.
The truth is it’s failing to keep pace as numbers of chronic sick workers continues to rise.
I tend to agree. It sounds like many here(I hope I’m mistaken) would be happy to let sick, poor & old people die or go untreated & living in poverty so long as their lives are minimally troubled or taxed. Among the poor I don’t see this “all living longer” claim. I see friends looking forward to finally retiring for a less troubled life only to die 2 or 3 years before getting there, plus having the goal posts of retirement age moved further away.
We do live longer Frank and there are a lot more of us older types now..the big issue is that although we are extending life we are not extending health..we have a lot of people living for a long time with very poor health and that costs a lot of money.
The truth is Andrew the NHS is not suffering under a burden of the sick working population ( that is actually not that expensive and a smaller group). The issue is we have a very large and growing older population, over 65 and over 80s…but the key issue is that we are extending life..but not extending health and that’s the big burden…a healthy 70 year old is not so expensive but a 70 year old with multiple long term conditions can be costing the health system 20-30k per year for a decade…and we only pay the NHS £3000 per year per person.
Yes and only because successive governments are not biting the bullet of defining actually what the NHS should do instead of allowing/encouraging it to do everything. Not helped by not actually creating a real Insurance scheme instead of adding it on as an income tax by another name. The real National Insurance scheme should be ring fenced and led by a not for profit agency independent of political interference. In effect individuals pay alongside employers, instead of to an insurance scheme into to Treasury. That is the only difference between what we do and what the Tories wish to emulate from USA.
The NHS has been forced to accept millions of unskilled, uneducated and unhealthy people from 3rd world countries. It wasn’t designed for this level of demand.
Do you know that a union leader in the health industry has boasted they are plotting to increase the percentage of staff employed in the NHS to 25% of the working population! It’s expenditure on administration costs is currently 52% of its current budget. My employer kept admin costs to 11%, that’s of course was in the private sector. Those diversity czars are so necessary don’t you think ?
It’s not a matter of defence or the NHS, not even education! It’s a matter of giving money/aid away to foreigners and illegal immigrants. The overseas aid budget should be terminated along with military aid to Ukraine. The later is not popular on this forum but it’s all money we need for ourselves. Charity begins at home.
As for going back on our word to defend Ukraine. It leaves a nasty taste in the mouth but we did much worse to Poland during and after WWII. When the Poles were a far more deserving cause.
It’s not looking good.
“The UK has no “credible” plan to buy all the weapons it needs after a huge jump in the cost of the nuclear deterrent helped to create a record funding gap, a group of MPs has warned.
Inflation and a weak pound also contributed to the hole of at least £16.9bn in a rolling, 10-year plan to procure equipment for the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, the Public Accounts Committee said in a scathing report.
The actual deficit is likely to be closer to £30bn if all the capabilities required by the Army – rather than only those it can afford – are included in the costs, the MPs said on Friday.”
Courtesy Of Sky News
https://
news.sky.com/story/uk-has-no-credible-plan-to-fund-military-equipment-as-multibillion-pound-deficit-revealed-report-13089653
Actually the 10 year equipment plan looks realistic compared with those of the the 2010s with their vast and growing funding shortfalls.
The latest 10 year plan was not compiled in the same way as in previous years. The RN and RAF included estimated costs of all projects they thought necessary to deliver their interpretation of defence needs, not just the approved ones. So Type32, MRSS are included even though no one knows how they will be specified. The army only included the costs of approved programmes.
There is no equipment black hole- yet.
The army should have the same methodology as RAF and RN regarding the EP. Very baffling that they don’t.
No black hole? Thats not what the article is saying.
“The UK has no “credible” plan to buy all the weapons it needs after a huge jump in the cost of the nuclear deterrent helped to create a record funding gap, a group of MPs has warned.
Inflation and a weak pound also contributed to the hole of at least £16.9bn in a rolling, 10-year plan to procure equipment for the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, the Public Accounts Committee said in a scathing report.
The actual deficit is likely to be closer to £30bn if all the capabilities required by the Army – rather than only those it can afford – are included in the costs, the MPs said on Friday”.
Source: Sky News at 0346hrs today.
Simply, this year’s 10 year plan was compiled differently( by the RN and RAF) from all previous plans. There is no finalized design for MRSS or T32, but the RN has shoved in an estimate for the full cost. All previous plans covered spending on approved projects only. The NAO were quite critical of this lack of consistency. In essence, the RN in particular were using the exercise as a bidding war.
Frankly, most MPs haven’t got a clue and Sky News doesn’t seem to have journalists capable of proper analysis.
Read the full NAO report.
How can you have a credible plan to buy kit if you have insufficient budget? I have no credible plan to buy that Ferrari I have always wanted!
MoD needs a credible plan to get more budget.
“ and the contentious inclusion of Ukraine aid within the UK’s defence budget figures.”
So it is a cut.
Previously that would have come from Treasury reserve….
0.9% increase is also a cut as inflation is higher than that.
So actually it is quite a big cut.
You got to hope that the 🇬🇧 is not undermining itself Defence wise while others are muscling up.
It is a bit unbelievable TBH.
Yes, CASD and nuclear are swallowing large numbers and the ever changing accounting is masking a deteriorating picture….
Perhaps by design?
What did anyone truly expect from.these pair of…
The goal is approaching. Britain unarmed.
Ripe to bend the knee to China and Russia, fail to support our allies and pull our weight. The government are failing (treason) to discharge their number one duty, the protection of the state.
I wonder why?
“BEIJING — China’s annual defense spending is set to grow by 7.2% this year, well above the country’s economic growth target of “around 5%,” amid high tensions with the U.S. and festering disputes over Taiwan and the East and South China Seas.
The Ministry of Finance submitted its annual budget plan to the National People’s Congress on Tuesday, the same day Premier Li Qiang delivered his government work report and reiterated Beijing’s firm stance on matters such as Taiwan and Hong Kong security.
The defense increase will bring the budget for 2024 to nearly 1.67 trillion yuan ($232 billion).
The pace of military expansion matches the spending budgeted under former Premier Li Keqiang’s watch last year. This marks the third year in a row of defense outlays growing more than 7%, even as the economy continues to slow down.”
Courtesy Of NIKKEI Asia
https://
asia.nikkei.com/Politics/China-People-s-Congress/China-defense-budget-grows-7.2-despite-other-belt-tightening
Worth keeping an eye on.
China and Russia To Team Up at Iran’s Naval War Games
China, Iran, and Russia are poised to conduct a joint naval exercise in the coming weeks, aiming to bolster regional security, as announced by the Iranian Navy Commander, Rear Admiral Shahram Irani.In a statement on the exercise, Irani said, “the primary strategy of the Iranian Army Navy in the current situation is to safeguard the interests and economic resources of the Islamic system and its people,” referring to growing tensions in the Middle East which started after the beginning of hostilities between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023.
he strategic timing of the exercise coincides with heightened tensions in the Middle East, particularly highlighted by a U.S.-led coalition’s recent airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. These strikes, a reaction to the Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea aim to diminish the capabilities of the Iran-supported group, further complicating the region’s security landscape.
This announcement, made public by the Iranian government-linked Tasnim News Agency on February 5, underscores the growing convergence of geopolitical interests of the three countries.”
Courtesy of Newsweek
https://
newsweek.com/china-russia-iran-naval-war-game-team-1867569
Only a few years ago HMG was falling over itself to court Russian & Chinese investment. Curious how far those “investments” have influenced the atropy of our armed forces. Or is that just an innocent coincidence?
It is nonsense to criticize the UK for failing to match many allies’ recent increases in defence spending. Most of them have spent a lower percentage of GDP for years and only since the Ukraine war have started to make good on their NATO commitment.
The UK will spend @2.3% in 2023/4 giving us,once again, the second highest budget in NATO. A number of eastern European countries will.reach a higher % but only after years of under spending.
Only the US and Germany have spent more on support to Ukraine.
The key for the UK is to make better use of the money allocated. Our defence budget is primarily to defend ourselves. £56b ought to be enough to deliver that once we abandon the pretentious nonsense of global Britain.
Peter, are you a Tory politician in disguise? When you take out the nuclear deterrent (which should be funded directly by HMT), service pensions and non-military intelligence, we probably only spend 1.5-1.7%.
Many £billions is wasted in poor procurement programmes.
We have always been ‘global Britain’ – it is not a nonsense. If you think we are not globally orientated, then are you suggesting selling both carriers and quite a few escorts?…or everything else that is required for world-wide expeditionary operations – C-17s etc.
All the costs included in our defence spending satisfy the NATO definition. It really doesn’t matter whether the nuclear deterrent is in a separate category. It all has to be paid for out of tax revenues that have not covered government expenditure in any year since 2000. 24 years of deficits and continuing.
So I think it is reasonable to argue that the current budget of @£56b ought, if spent wisely, to be sufficient for our defence needs.
World wide expeditionary capability is not necessary just a legacy of imperial nostalgia. No other medium size country tries to have one except France for similar reasons of a past imperial role. France ‘s finances are in an even bigger mess than ours and major cuts in public expenditure are imminent.
As to the ” many billions wasted in poor procurement programmes”, what better example than aircraft carriers whose construction costs doubled to £7b and for which there was never enough funding to make full use of. Even France, which planned its future carrier operations far better ( using a wholly a French aircraft), recognized that 2 such vessels were unaffordable.
We engage in world-wide expeditionary operations, not because it puffs us up to be reminded of the Empire (who really is in that category?) but because we consider that (with our credentials and experience) we should be a force for good in this world.
Many countries, even small ones, engage in operations beyond their homeland and beyond their part of their continent. 50 nations chose to deploy military forces to Afghanistan. 42 nations deployed forces on Gulf War 1.
Regarding the carrier programme, £2.8bn was never going to be enough to build two state of the art large carriers. The MoD/Industry estimate was pitched low to avoid ‘scaring the horses’ and to minimise opposing reaction from HMT – thats how politics works. Costs increased due to very poor political decisions (the multiple U-turns on CATOBAR or STOVL; then the decision to slow the build down and re-profile the spend.) Each of our carriers are a quarter of the price of a Ford-class. £7bn represents a figure equating to 4% of one year’s NHS annual spend, but spread over many years.
The UK only “meets” the 2% GDP minimum by fiddling the books. We haven’t seen stability in force levels but a steady, rapid decline across the board & are weaker now than ever since WW2, still disarming as though world peace broke out in 1991.
Correct. And the ones who have shirked and continue to shirk, will also be required to make back payments. You don’t get to consistently go below the 2% and expect your other NATO members to carry you like fools. Trump warned of this for years, and now it has come home. He was called a monster for even suggesting NATO pay its bills. Now if he is President the “yanks will pay for it” gravy train stops. Stops dead.
Incompetence, moronic, dangerous and treason.
4 words that sum up the Tory government under Sunak and Hunt.
It is madness not one penny on Defence 😞
We are no longer in the era of the peace dividend — we are in the era of the fingers-in-ears dividend.
Fingers crossed is my take.
Breaking up lifeboats for firewood as the Titanic goes down.
The wake-up call goes unheard again, what does that tell us about the state of politics in the UK?
Basically they haven’t got a clue . For wake up call with war in Europe and the possibility of Trump getting Elected and pulling out of NATO .Does this mean other NATO members are on there own ? Are the UK going stay up with Europe if Russian decide to have a go ? Or are we going to say sorry no can do without our American friend’s.🤔 No money what so ever allocated to Defence budget just remains the same as if it’s peace time .And yet the UK are trying hard to keep our beloved NHS going 👍 which is also under great strain but forking out Millions on people who come a cross the channel every did of the week in 4-5 Hotels which our infrastructure can’t take like housing etc Benefit system let alone more strain on our NHS. I wonder all these people who come over the channel would they fight for the UK if it came down to it probably not it’s just out Benefits. 🇬🇧 🙄
It’s not too late to change policy and deport these people back to where they came from. All things considered, some cultures are better than others. The UK is a better culture than say, somalia, hence the reason why many many are flocking from 3rd world countries to the UK for free stuff. They know that some cultures are better than others.
There seems to be a more general approach of today’s politician to hide the truth from voters. The CP have built-in cuts after the next election which underpin their current financial plan and nobody is willing to confront the impact these cuts will have – jam today is the offer from a tired and fractious CP. As for Labour they are trying their best to make themselves as small a target as possible to avoid being found out. Under this policy everything is aspirational with no detail, except VAT on private school fees which plays to their left wing. They have no real plan with costs and timescales behind their promises, at least what they are prepared to share with voters. Keeping their heads down and letting the CP shoot themselves in the foot seems to be the policy and its working. Given this, a Labour administration now seems certain after the next GE. This will almost certainly see a return to the thinking of the Wilson Government of the 1960’s – complete withdrawal from East of Suez, good bye at least one carrier, and total reliance on NATO which in itself is underpinned by the US. Unfortunately, unlike the 1960’s,this is not certain given that Trump will most likely to be the next US president. So, Defence will continue to be the topic nobody really wants to debate in detail because its not good news. Meanwhile we delude ourselves on our role in the world and believe our armed forces should have the very best and most sophisticated equipment available which, given the available budget, results in small numbers equipment with elongated purchases e.g. the F35. Perhaps we should start to think more about what is good enough given the lack of numbers resulting from our current policy Meanwhile we see Russia firmly in the stance of the past, playing the long game knowing that without the US (as our industrial factory as in WW2) NATO will runout of equipment especially ammunition as is happening in their Ukraine campaign. Perhaps our young people see this and the general low regard we hold ourArmed services because of need for constant manpower cuts which may be why they are so reluctant to join. In my experience of Industry its impossible to recruit if your company is paying off its staff .
– Sorry this has been a long rant I hope I am wrong !!
I know the Chancellor did not have much money to play with, but I was amazed he could not find a token extra amount for defence. He was dishing ou a million here or twenty five million there on all sorts of things. He should have given an extra ten million to refurbishing service housing or a few million to RN/RFA extra crew so ships are not stuck in port. Just some token spend to show the services were not forgotton. If Hunt needs revenue, he should copy Trump & put tariffs on Chinese goods.
Another bad day for defence spending, and given the state of public finances, not at all surprising.
The goal has to be to improve productivity, increase public and private aector investemnt, increase wages and thereby those able to pay taxes, increase trade, and eliminate structural barriers (realistically this means re-entering the EU single market).
Right now we’re in a period of quantitative tightening, and this burden is falling on individuals and the public sector. Until there is relief from this, there will be no more in the pot for defence in particular.
I’m pretty sure that keeping taxes where they are and spending the difference on a bunch of British-produced NLAWs, Brimstone, 155 mm arty ammunition and other such things would grow the economy far more than that drop in NI will. Hunt’s budget is nothing to do with what’s long-term good for the country, just enough to keep the hardcore Tory tax-haters at bay and an attempt to win a few votes- which I really hope is seen as the transparent (and probably worthless) attempt that it is.
Many things need to structurally change to make this country’s finances work, but this budget doesn’t appear to have done any of them- or even worked within the broken system to achieve much at all.
So there we have it at long last… tory bean counters publicly stating that they are dramatically cutting the armed forces budget.
£2.5Billion reduction, however I doubt if it will stop there. By my reckoning the creatures holding the purse strings have till at least till November, to gift contracts, and squander more millions into the pockets of those they may soon work for.
Interesting times…
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and before the ‘Peace’ dividend the UK was spending around £34 Billion on Defence, approx 4% of GDP. Today that figure is approx £55.5 Billion, 2.1% GDP with the Nuclear deterrent also coming out of this budget unlike in 1990, Allowing for inflation since 1990, today we should be looking at a figure of around nearly £70 Billion at 3% GDP. I accept these figures are plus or minus but it does illustrate that our politicians have carried on with the same ‘Peace’ dividend mentality over the last 30 years. Only a hot conflict will change the current mind set in government.
Rather worrying news. We keep cutting military personnel in order to switch the money to the equipment budget, but the soaring cost of modern equipment means we always have a massive, unfunded hole in the budget.
Result is force levels that are now far too small.for the job and no budget to even replace much of the current ageing kit.
The RN is the least badly hit, with new submarines, expensive carriers, new £1bn escorts on the way, new FSS ships to be ordered, new MROS and no doubt new MRSS in due course. etc, etc. It is a pretty questionable strategic emphasis though, as the principal threat to Western Europe is an air-land one, the maritime threat from the Russian navy is limited and completely outmatched by NATO Europe naval forces.
The maritime emphasis comes at a high price. Our air force has been reduced to its smallest size, in personnel and aircraft, since the RFC was formed in 1916. The army is at its smallest for nearly 300 years and much of its kit is ageing and overdue for replacement.
What to do?
Our independent nuclear programme is wildly expensive, much more than we can afford, and is sucking up the funds needed just to replace our conventional kit. We ne3d to actively seek to place the nuclear programme in a European SSBN force, jointly manned and funded by the main European players, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. We like the idea of the UK having its own nuclear deterrent but the cost is now out of all proportion to what our stagnant economy can afford.
To break the downward spiral of ever-reducing personnel numbers and never-affordable equipment plans, defence spending must increase. 3% of GDP should be the mid-term target. For now, I would settle for 2 5%, with the increase from 2% being incremental over the 10 years to 2035. That should be palatable and manageable for our reluctant, defence-averse and short-termist politicians.
We need to curtail the equipment costs by settling for good enough, rather than exquisite. Boxer and Ajax are very large, heavy and expensive, there were many suitable alternatives that would have done the job. F-35B is turning into an expensive buy, and moreover when we get the bill.for the Block 1V upgrades. The F-35A is a better aircraft and is 30% less expensive, maybe time to curtail the orders for the former and switch to the latter.
The price of upper-end US equipment is becoming astronomical. 1 5 billion for a Wedgetail. £100m for a Chinook. £50m (?) for a Protector drone. And so on. One caveat: the MOD accountants keep giving full-life costs for these programmes, so they add in repairs and upgrades and replacement bits and no doubt fuel and whatever else over the 20+ year service life. This is a meaningless figure for anyone who is not an accountant, all these costs are already contained in the equipment budget so it is rather tautologogical to count them twice.
Google gives the flyaway price of a new Chinook at under £50m, the MOD is quoting £100m for its long-delayed batch of new Chinook ERs.They can’t both be right. It is time that we looked at alternatives to this expensive US kit. The Saab AEW offering was maybe a slightly lower spec than the Wedgetail but considerably less expensive. There are other capable, much less expensive MR/ASW aircraft out there compared to Poseidon P8. And so on.
We need to start to cut the cloth we’ve got to fit and stop trying to play top trumps to match the USA, which is no longer affordable.
And lots more things need aired and debated if the hollowing-out of the forces is to be stopped as indeed it must be, and we start to increase our strength to match our NATO peers.
World beating complacency. Criminal considering our alliance & UN responsabilities.
Many like to say we’re not a world policeman, but if we don’t play our part we leave a vaucum for the likes of China & Russia to fill. Our interests are global wether we like it or not. Every nation allowed to fail just increases the numbers of refugees seeking safety in more stable, peaceful nations such as ours. If we were in their position we’d be doing the same.
Isolationism just enables evil.
Our current NHS cannot sustain peace time levels of care, let alone a large scale shooting war. Both it and Defence need significant and urgent upgrades in financing. We could start by makign sure that the wealthy actually pay their fair share instead of taking advantage of tax avoidance schemes. Our PM for example has paid less in income tax proportional to income than the majority of normal working people!
You sound like a socialist dreamer. The issue is unplanned and unbudgeted demand from millions of unskilled, unhealthy and uneducated migrants from the 3rd world countries that have flocked to UK for much advertised free stuff. This unplanned demand is the result of woke, British self hatred/colonial guilt policies of the left.
What on earth has your comment got to do with it? If you care to actually apply reason and logic you are may understand the actual position instead of believing the false statistics, inuendos and blatant misrepresentation of our current crop of self interested inept political masters in charge of the nation’s finances! They are treating us all like idiots. The facts are that the cuts in public services have (why do you think queues exist in hospitals, police not being able to deal with crimes, and defence being pared back have all occured?) been caused by austerity politics. Regardless of anything else if there is a war, how on earth is the health service supposed to cope with all the additional demands when it cannot meet them now in peace time? Rather than trot out meaningless, unfounded and unrelated drivel answer this last question – please.
Well those who are tories on this site ,come up with a good case for this one
The country appears to be tapped out. Perhaps when you welcome millions of uneducated, unskilled illegal economic migrants to the British welfare state, that is designed and budgeted to support less, it begins to collapse under the unplanned demand sent its’ way. Economics basics.
Good luck UK, it’s not too late to jump out of the boiling pot of water but it’s later than you think.
Seems to be we have been keeping a number of capabilities warmed over for a ‘rainy day’.
Can someone with a pair, tell Sunak and Hunt the rains are coming and they better move themselves into a new way of thinking fast because believe me Defence Spending is going to be an election issue?
Is that clear?
Sadly I think that Defence Spending is unlikely to be a ‘Top 10’ election issue. The most I would expect from a manifesto is the Tories ‘pledging’ yet again to spend 2.5% on Defence when economic conditions allow it (ie never).
God sake,
Many countries have been paying 1% to defence budgets. UK is not one of them. The issue is not money. It is the spending of that money. Pensions are eating up the U.K. budget. NHS, like defence is able to waste billions.
We need to address the issues of what we spend money on and how we spend it before we start setting arbitrary figures of GDP.
As someone who has a few years on the clock now, I would be more than willing to consider palliative care only above 70 – 75 provided by NHS.
Painful decisions have to be made, and screaming “more money” when so much is wasted, does not help.