The report, entitled Beyond 2 per cent, has been produced ahead
of the anticipated release of ‘high-level findings’ by the MDP,
towards the end of June. It examines how the process has
proceeded and highlights areas, including capability,
commercial practices, recruitment and international
partnerships, which the Committee expects the review to
consider.
The report explores how the MDP had its origins in the
decision taken in mid-2017 to initiate the National Security
Capability Review (NSCR) in response to the development of
new and intensified threats facing the United Kingdom. The
aim of the NSCR was to ‘refresh’ the findings of the 2015
Strategic Defence and Security Review and look again at
capabilities across 12 broad areas of national security
policy, including Defence. However, the ‘fiscally neutral’
nature of the NSCR meant that any new resources applied to
some aspects of national security would entail reductions in
resources available to others – even though the emergence of
new threats had not been accompanied by the disappearance of
pre- existing ones.
The procedural and financial restrictions of the NSCR led to
a range of options being produced which would have resulted
in substantial cuts in defence capability across the Armed
Forces, such the potential loss of the specialist assault
ships HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark. The Defence Secretary,
, who later described
the NSCR as a ‘straightjacket’, succeeded in having the
Defence element of the NSCR taken out and then initiated the
MDP.
The Committee’s report congratulates him for taking this bold
step. The MDP is seen as an opportunity to review
comprehensively the UK’s strategic position and the military
requirements which flow from that analysis. It can, in this
way, be a fully strategy-led exercise, reflecting the
increase in the range and intensity of threats posed by state
actors, in addition to ongoing international terrorist
campaigns.
According to the report, failing to finance Defence on a
sustainable basis will continue to result in supposedly
settled policy having to be revisited. This makes the
implementation of long-term strategy very difficult and fuels
the impression that Defence is inherently financially
unstable.
The report concludes that the only solution is to move
spending on Defence closer to 3% of GDP – approaching the
level of investment made by the UK from the end of the Cold
War until the mid-1990s. This could produce a long-term
settlement providing strategic and financial stability.
Although further reform within the scope of the MDP will be
necessary, for the MoD to prove that it can be the
‘responsible owner’ of a new settlement, it should not be
based on elusive and ambitious ‘efficiency savings’ in order
to make ends meet.
Chair's comments
, Defence Committee
chairman, said:
"We hope that our report will assist in sparking
debate and focusing minds on priorities that should
be considered by the Modernising Defence Programme. The
Secretary of State was right to remove Defence from the
National Security Capability Review which would otherwise
have resulted in further disastrous cuts to the Armed
Forces, and we endorse his efforts to obtain a better
settlement for Defence.
The Government now needs to look beyond the two per cent
minimum on Defence spending, and begin moving towards a
figure of three per cent, to place our defence policy on a
sustainable basis to meet new threats and fill existing
financial ‘black holes’. Defence is constantly described as
the first duty of government. The MDP is the government’s
opportunity to show that it means what it says."
