Britain has a ’boutique’ military with ‘no depth’, a former head of the Armed Forces has said, as he backed the Daily Mail’s campaign to boost defence spending.
Lord Houghton of Richmond, who was chief of the defence staff between 2013 and 2016, criticised politicians for allowing the military to be ‘hollowed out’ over two decades.
There has been too much spent on big ticket items such as aircraft carriers and the nuclear deterrent at the neglect of investing in ‘war fighting resilience’, the former Army general added.
General Lord Nick Houghton (former Chief of the Defence Staff) pictured attending a Service of Thanksgiving on July 13, 2023
Lord Houghton criticised politicians for allowing the military to be ‘hollowed out’ over two decades
This requires investing more in stockpiling munitions, training and building reserve forces so Britain is capable of fighting a ‘sustained’ conflict. A Commons defence committee report recently warned we were not ready to fight such a conflict without investing in these areas.
Speaking to the Mail, Lord Houghton said it was ‘incomprehensible’ that politicians were talking up global threats while claiming they couldn’t find extra money for defence, adding: ‘Going on about these tax giveaways is so transparently an attempt to mitigate a bad election.’
There had been dashed hopes Jeremy Hunt would boost defence spending in last month’s Spring Budget given rising global threats.
Lord Houghton was among four ex-military chiefs and nearly 30 peers and MPs to sign an open letter, The Defence Pledge, reported in yesterday’s Daily Mail and calling on the Tories and Labour to commit to at least 2.5 per cent of GDP for defence in their election manifestos, rising to 3 per cent by 2030. It mirrors the Mail’s Don’t Leave Britain Defenceless campaign.
Around 2.3 per cent of GDP annually is spent on defence. It has not risen above 2.5 per cent since 2010.
The cost of the Government’s National Insurance cuts over the past six months would have been enough to boost defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP.