Armed forces could be forced to cut training and operations despite ‘severe and acute’ threats to UK, defence chief warns
Britain’s armed forces may have to “dial back” training and operations unless the Government increases day-to-day defence funding, the head of the military has warned.
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Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton told the Lords International Relations and Defence Committee that he was most worried about the funding used to pay for operational activity, exercises and training.
He said: “The thing that I’m most concerned about is the level of day-to-day activity funding, the resource departmental expenditure limit, because that funds operational activity and drives exercises and training.
“Those are the things that make sure the men and women of our armed forces are as ready as they can be with the equipment that they have got today, and without changes to the settlement, as John Healey set out, then those areas will come under pressure.”
Sir Richard added: “We will have to dial back our activities and our exercise and operational activity if the level of resource funding that’s available to us does not increase. Now that’s still to be debated and decided.”
His warning comes amid growing turmoil over the Government’s long-delayed Defence Investment Plan, which has already triggered the resignation of Defence Secretary John Healey.
Earlier, the new Defence Secretary, Dan Jarvis, told LBC, Britain must use "all tools at its disposal" to tackle "severe and acute" threats which the nation faces.
Read more: New Defence Secretary insists he's determined to get Armed Forces 'the funding they need'
Mr Healey quit after the plan fell short of what defence chiefs had asked for, with officials seeking £28 billion over four years to transform Britain’s armed forces into a military fit for future threats.
Instead, the plan set out around £13.5 billion of spending, leaving serious questions over whether the armed forces will have enough money not just to buy new equipment, but to train properly and sustain operations.
Armed Forces Minister Al Carns also left the Government, warning that the Defence Investment Plan was “not fit for purpose” and that Britain needed to prepare to fight the next war, not the last one.
Sir Richard told peers that inflation had already put severe pressure on the military’s budget, pointing to an 88% rise in the cost of aviation fuel over the past year.
He said: “It would be disingenuous of me to suggest that there’s going to be no impact as a consequence of the settlement.”
The warning will add to fears that Britain’s armed forces are being squeezed at the very moment ministers are promising to rebuild national resilience and increase defence spending.
The warning comes two months after LBC heard claims that Army training had become so stretched that commanders had been told training should be "done for free" and troops were being forced to shout “bang, bang” on exercises because there was no blank ammunition available.
A caller told LBC's Nick Ferrari at Breakfast that troops were “running around Salisbury Plain shouting ‘bang, bang’ because they’ve got no blank firing ammunition”.
When asked where the claim had come from, he said: “My contacts are at Army board level.”
He added: “It’s come to our soldiers shouting ‘bang, bang’."
Critics have argued that the funding row exposes a deeper problem inside defence: that ministers are promising a larger and more capable military while the armed forces are still struggling with basic readiness, ageing equipment, recruitment problems and pressure on day-to-day training budgets.
The Government has insisted it is increasing defence spending and delivering the deepest reforms to the Ministry of Defence in decades.