Britain’s most senior military chief has reportedly warned prime minister Keir Starmer that the Ministry of Defence is facing a £28bn funding “black hole” over the next four years.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, who is chief of the defence staff, broke the news to the PM late last year, according to the Times. The paper said the financial assessment is the reason for the delay in the publication of the Defence Investment Plan, which had been due to be aired by the end of December.
The Times reported sources saying Starmer had been left “deeply unhappy” by the briefing as he had believed last year’s Strategic Defence Review was “fully costed”.
Sources told the paper that Starmer has ordered officials to rework the investment plan, which will spell out how the SDR will be delivered. They added that the plan may now not surface until March.
The report said higher inflation, pay rises for armed forces personnel and the cost of the nation’s nuclear deterrent were all to blame for the £28bn funding shortfall anticipated between now and 2030. A military source was quoted saying that ministers would be searching for “big ticket items” to cut and programmes to delay to save money.
Last month, new reports of problems with the Army’s troubled £6.3bn Ajax armoured-vehicles programme raised further doubts about the project’s future – and whether it could be scrapped in the investment plan.
News of the funding shortfall comes against the backdrop of ever-growing expectations of the UK armed forces.
On Tuesday, Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron committed to deploying troops to support “the defence, reconstruction and strategic sustainability of Ukraine” in the event of a ceasefire between that nation and Russia.
The following day, UK forces joined a US-led mission to capture a Russian-flagged tanker in waters north of Scotland, amid what defence secretary John Healey described as increasing “malign activity” on the high seas.
Responding to the Times story, an MoD spokesperson said: “The UK defence budget is rising to record levels as this government delivers the biggest boost to defence spending since the Cold War, totalling £270bn this parliament alone. Demands on defence are rising, with growing Russian aggression, increasing operational requirements and preparations for a Ukraine deployment.”