Army ‘half as capable as it was’ due to cuts

Cuts to the defence budget in recent years have left the Army half as capable as it once was, a former Chief of the General Staff has said.

General Lord Richard Dannatt said there is a “very strong case” for Britain to increase defence spending by an extra £5 billion a year.

Gen Dannatt added that when he was at the head of the Army in 2009 it was at a size of 102,000 but is now at a level of less than 80,000.

“What that represents is a situation whereby ten years ago we could have five combat brigades rotating through a campaign in Iraq, and at the same time five combat brigades rotating through a campaign in Afghanistan,” he said. “We could not do that now. We could do one of those but we couldn’t do both.

“The figures are actually quite harsh, for a 7% reduction of the defence budget which is what happened in 2010, it resulted in a 20% cut in the size of the Army, and I would actually suggest a 50% cut in what we can actually do.”

His comments come ahead of the latest budget, and amid calls to increase spending to above 3% of GDP on top of a black hole in the budget of at least £20 billion over the next decade.

Gen Dannatt said although the UK is meeting the Nato target of spending 2% of GDP on defence it was now spending as little as it ever had on defence.