Engineering news
Britain faces becoming a “second division” military nation as cuts to the defence budget loom, a leading aeronautical engineer has warned.
Tony Edwards, vice president of the National Defence Association and a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, told a seminar organised by the union Prospect today that the defence sector faced “dire implications” if proposed cuts to the defence budget of around 16% took place following the election.
His comments came in the wake of strong criticism of spending plans for defence by an influential group of MPs, who last week described the government as being “disingenuous” on details of the defence budget deficit. “There is a conspiracy of silence [on discussing defence spending] until after the election,” Edwards claimed.
He said defence spending was already at its lowest as a proportion of GDP since before the Second World War, and that defence had been prioritised well below the NHS and education by successive governments since the end of the Cold War. He said previous reviews of defence spending had been little more than “cuts masquerading as reviews”.
Edwards said that if the defence budget was cut by 16% in the next four years, Britain would lose its place with the United States in the first tier of military nations. “Capability is going to plummet down into the middle of the second division behind nations such as Russia and China,” he said.
Addressing the same meeting at Prospect, Kevan Jones MP, parliamentary under-secretary of state and minister for veterans, acknowledged that some “tough choices” were going to be made in terms of defence spending. “Defence spending is not going to grow in the next five years, no matter which government is returned,” he admitted.
He added: “Protecting everything as it is is not going to be an option. Some sacred cows might have to be shot.”
Edwards called for a further £60 billion to be spent on defence over the next five years to make up for deficits in the budget, maintain operations overseas, and repair and replace equipment. We are not willing to invest in the sovereignty of this nation,” he said.
He said the MoD had been ill-prepared for a long-term conflict such as that in Afghanistan at the turn of the century. By contrast, he said, the US was prepared to invest $100 billion in repairing and replenishing its armed forces in the wake of Afghanistan and the Iraq war.
Once the conflict in Afghanistan ends, Edwards claimed it would take Britain seven years to recover to the extent that it could mount a similar operation. Referring to the increase in US troops in Helmand province, he said: “The Americans are looking askance at our much-vaunted military capability.”