Why defence delays are dangerous for the UK

0:02Sky News, the full story first.

0:12They were due to be published last autumn. Now the government says its plans for the future of our military are still weeks away. And this is why.

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1:04Hi everyone, Neil here. And over the past few weeks, we've been focusing an awful lot on defence. Well, on war, really. But I'm beginning to wonder if the government is just as engaged with the issue as we are. Because it was all the way back in June last year that we had what's known as the Strategic Defence Review. Basically, the blueprint for what we want our armed forces to do in future. That was supposed to be followed up within months by the spending commitments to take us there. Instead, we're still waiting. When will we see the Defence Investment Fund? Pretty soon, when it's ready and fully costed.

1:38OK, is pretty soon weeks? Is it months? I think it'll be more like weeks than months. All of which is laudable, I suppose. But every week that passes without the necessary funding commitment is time wasted. And you can bet our enemies aren't sitting on their hands. So why the delay? I think more and more people are recognising that Russia is posing a very real threat to us. We're not well prepared, but the government is clearly struggling to work out how on earth to fund this. Sean Bell is Sky's defence analyst. Sean, always great to have you on the podcast. Look, I think we do need to start with a couple of definitions here.

2:13Just explain exactly what the defence investment plan is, because it also relates to something else known as the Strategic Defence Review. Yeah, I mean, I'm old enough and ugly enough that when we were in the Cold War, we didn't really do these defence reviews. We knew what the threat was, and therefore we prepared accordingly. But of course, in the years since the fall of the Cold War, and particularly when a new government comes into place, they do a defence review. They look at the threats facing our nation, how do we need to configure our defensive capability, our military, and therefore invest accordingly.

2:43Now, the government conducted this strategic defence review. It was published, I think, in June last year. The trouble is, having a plan is all very well, but vision without funding is hallucination. Therefore, you need to provide some money behind that. That's called the Defence Investment Plan. That was due to come out in autumn of last year. But actually, here we sit at the start of June the following year, and still no sign of it. All of which suggests we should be cracking on with this, which begs the question, why on earth aren't we? Yeah, I mean, that is the question of the moment. It's frustrating, I think, a lot of the serving military.

3:18But it is worth pointing out, I think, there's a lot of moving parts here, One of which is that the money, the way that defence spends money, it's called an equipment programme and it lasts 10 years. There's a 10 year looking forward from now into 10 years time. And the money in the first two, three, five years is all committed. In other words, you've already signed contracts. You've already given money to buy ships, tanks and aeroplanes. The government can turn around and say we spend over 60 billion a year on defence. Yes, but a lot of that money is committed. And even if you woke up tomorrow and said, right, we're going to spend on a different set of priorities, you probably can't suddenly cancel those contracts because you'd probably pay as much to cancel them as you would to see them delivered.

3:59The point being is it takes several years before you can actually have influence unless you put new money into defence. And that's what the government has been promising. It's suggested it's going to go up to 3.5 percent of GDP from about 2.3 percent today. A hell of a big slug of money. But where does that money come from? And that's the big issue, I think, facing the government today. So it is just purely, look, we have this wish list as lying as my arm of things we need to prepare our military for the next decade, two decades, whatever. We just don't have the money to cover all the items that presumably are listed in the defence investment plan that we are yet to see.

4:37And it's also worth pointing out that when the Cold War fell, we saw a steady decline in defence spending from about 4 % of GDP through the Cold Wars. it was considerably higher at times, down to just over 2%. And if you look back and do the maths, that means that as a nation, we've saved about 1.4 trillion pounds, that's trillion pounds, over what we were spending in the Cold War. Now, that's because the threats to our nation were largely, we were doing expeditionary warfare, we were going away to fight in Iraq, Afghanistan, my era, we were constantly fighting overseas. But of course, the Strategic Defence Review turned around and went, hang on a minute, now it's no longer wars of choice that we need to be configuring for.

5:21It's wars of national survival. A resurgent Russia, particularly after invading Ukraine, is a real threat to our nation. All of a sudden now you need a different set of military capability and that needs an immense amount of money and you can't suddenly fill this 1.4 trillion gap. It takes years, probably decades, to backfill to get us back to where we need to be. It sounds awfully like there might well be a black hole in the MOD finances. And frankly, you know, I'm old enough and ugly enough to have heard that many, many times before when it comes to the Ministry of Defence. I think there's two different things here.

5:54The MOD always aspires to buy more stuff than it can afford. Part of that is because, you know, defence requirements change all the time. also some of it is because we balance between buying off the shelf which generally you know exactly how much it's going to cost because it's a bit like going to Sainsbury's and buying something or we decide to develop something nationally which of course there are benefits of doing that if we develop our own aircraft the Typhoon aircraft is a good example the trouble is it ends up being fearsomely expensive and over time sometimes requirements change that makes it even more expensive therefore the unit cost of them gets very expensive but a lot of money comes into the country, it creates jobs.

6:32Therefore, economically, it can be very good for the country. And that's the challenge that all of these decisions have to be made by government. There are some great examples of great mistakes that have been made. And therefore, as you say, this black hole is just really the gap between what the MOD wants to do and what it can do. That's not really what's happening at the moment. What's happening at the moment is there's a complete mismatch between the direction of travel, what defence is configured to do and what we need it to do that the defence review identified protecting our nation. Well, Sean, presumably you will have pored over the strategic defence review line by line and will have as good an idea as anyone outside of the MOD about what might actually be in the defence investment plan when we finally get our hands on it.

7:16What do we need to fight this war in the brave new world of the 21st century? So the way defence reviews are structured, they look firstly at where the threat is. Now, for most of my time in the military, Russia and China were the two driving threats. We've largely let China be looked after by America. So Russia is the driving threat. And of course, that means a war on European continent. Now, if you go through Poland at the moment, they are massively building their army, their drone warfare, their tank capability. Now, we're an island nation. We don't feel the heat of Russia the same way. But if we don't look east and look west, Russia has got a massive submarine force.

7:55It is threatening our undersea cables. It's regularly probing our defences using air power. So we don't necessarily need a big army in the future. What we do need as a maritime nation is we do need to protect ourselves, protect the global shipping routes, and also be able to combat this very large Russian submarine threat. We always used to be very good at it. We were very good at doing anti-submarine warfare. But of course, over the years, we've gradually lit that atrophy. We can still do it, but on a very small nature. And I think that's what we mean here. It's not about abandoning your army or growing a massively big air force.

8:29It's actually saying, where are the priorities? And we should be investing in the Navy. We do need more anti-submarine warfare capability. And we also need to protect our island nation from attack. In the Battle of Britain, famously, we had 100 squadrons protecting our nation. Today, we've got single figures. And although they're enormously more capable, those single figures are not only looking after the UK, they're looking after Gibraltar, Cyprus, Falkland Islands and NATO commitments. It makes we've spread really thin, incredibly brave men and women serving the services, but we've got to equip them properly to do the job.

9:03So is then the biggest problem with the delay to the defence investment plan, The fact that, well, the longer it takes to come out, the longer it takes for us to get started building this stuff. I mean, I suppose there's also a reputational risk involved as well, given that, you know, Sir Keir Starmer has talked about us getting onto the war footing. And it doesn't look like we're actually doing anything in that regard. No, and I always work on the basis that politicians are not stupid. Defence Investment Plan was due to be announced last year. You've got to look at there are all sorts of reputational hassles.

9:35You know, the UK has been committed to defending three and a half percent now on defence, all part of the commitment to NATO and President Trump. It's worth pointing out the last time we spent three and a half percent, our nation was spending four percent on the NHS. Now we're spending nine point two percent of our GDP on the NHS. So the harsh reality is it's all very well saying you're going to deliver this big uplift. But where's the money going to come from? You either got to make some difficult decisions. Welfare or warfare is always a soundbite that's thrown out there, but difficult priorities.

10:08Second way of doing it is to increase taxes. We're already pretty highly taxed. And the prevailing view is whenever you increase taxes, you reduce the tax take. The third option is to borrow more. But last time I looked, we're up about 96%, I think, of GDP in debt at the moment. Eight percent of our government's income is paying back the debt. It's not a viable resource. So there's some real issues there. And most governments, their number one priority, bluntly, is to get re-elected. And defence has never been a particularly big issue for the electorate. So at the moment, which government is going to actually cut welfare or cut spending on the NHS in order to fund defence?

10:47Because that would be a death knell for that government. I think that's the big problem we've got here, because I think more and more people are recognising that Russia is posing a very real threat to us. We're not well prepared, but the government is clearly struggling to work out how on earth to fund this. I mean, isn't there another problem relating to the politics? And it is, you know, we have a by-election forthcoming just outside Greater Manchester. I mean, look, if the defence investment plan is delayed by another handful of weeks, that takes us past the by-election. That takes us into the summer where there will be leadership speculation.

11:20If we don't get cracking with this now, we're not going to get cracking with it for a very long time. Yeah, and in a way, it's worse than that, because that massive uplift, the government quite rightly, in my view, wanted to make defence the foundation of growth for this economy. Frankly, we seem to be struggling to find a way to grow the economy. We've got a good reputation in several areas of defence. Why would we not invest in defence and capitalise on that into the export market? Well, the longer you leave these decisions, the more difficult it is, because other nations will then make their decisions where they're going to buy stuff.

11:53They won't necessarily buy it from us or in partnership with us. And so, of course, all of this creates a big problem for the UK because the longer we delay, the less likely it is we'll be able to capitalise into the export market. And therefore, we will have a higher bill at the end. That is incredibly frustrating for somebody like me who sees huge opportunity here for the nation. And yet this political intransigence is making us not only vulnerable, but failing to capitalise on this great opportunity to generate some sort of wealth and prosperity for the nation. I was absolutely fascinated by something you said, Sean, when you pointed out that the great British public just sometimes aren't that interested in defence.

12:32Certainly not minded to kind of get big two thumbs up to massively increase defence spending. Doesn't that suggest that our politicians have not been honest with the British public about two things? First and foremost, of course, the state of our armed forces. But more than that, about the very real risk that this world is heading absolutely unequivocally and possibly without a way out of it towards prolonged period of conflict. I mean, it is interesting. Tonight I'm attending an event in Parliament which is designed deliberately to have this conversation, to actually turn around and go, look, you all know, MPs, Lords, all know that Russia is now buzzing our aircraft.

13:18It is now challenging our airspace. It's submarines are challenging undersea cables. And you know that Russia has got its economy on a war footing. It isn't by chance. And the best way to avert war historically has been to prepare for it. That provides you the most credibility. It's a very, very credible deterrence with a small d. And we are not in that position. We are incredibly vulnerable, particularly for missile defence, because if Russia suddenly decided to send one of its hypersonic missiles to the centre of London, we could admire it, watch it from afar, but watch it smash into the Houses of Parliament, do nothing about it.

13:51I do think there is, therefore, how do you raise the public awareness? I think in some respects, the armed forces have been their own worst enemy here, because we've been having conversations with the Royal Air Force. They're doing an amazing job with very limited resources, but they tell their story about how well they're doing without the price that's being paid both in people and in burning up the hours and in the shortage of stockpiles. And that's, of course, that message is carefully controlled by Her Majesty Government. They do not allow people in the military to talk freely. In a way, I think our public feel reassured that our military are doing a good job, which is great.

14:27What they don't understand is just how fragile that is. And the lack of investment means that if we are not prepared, and that's how Ukraine was, the only way to fight these wars is to pour masses of bodies at the fight. You have mass conscription and therefore you end up with mass casualties. Exactly what's happened in Ukraine. I cannot believe that is the right way for us to prepare for war. There has to be a smarter way for us as a nation, not only to prepare for war, but also to deter it and ensure our peace and security. Sean, always a pleasure talking to you. Thanks for your time. Thanks very much for being with us.

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