Defence demoted

SIR – Con Coughlin (Comment, November 28) is right to state that the Ministry of Defence’s budget shortfall is the product of cuts.

Defence never shared in the Blair/ Brown public-spending bonanza. Rather, the 1998 Defence Review was underfunded to the tune of at least a billion pounds a year, with the books being squared by unrealistic assumptions of future efficiencies. It did not end there.

The MOD was required to meet much of the additional costs of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, unlike earlier wars.

The Defence Review of 2010 left the Royal Navy permanently short of at least 1,500 people to meet its laiddown tasks and was itself underfunded.

The announcement that HMS Prince of Wales, second of the new carriers, would be fully operational when built was very welcome and appropriate, but came with no increase in people or money. It was like asking the NHS to open new hospitals with no more doctors, nurses or cash.

Against all previous precedent the MOD has been required to finance renewal of the nuclear deterrent within its existing budget.

According to figures derived from the Institute of Fiscal Studies the budget for 2016 was 17 per cent less than it was in 2010. Even after the vaunted increases between now and 2020, it won’t reach its former level.

I could cite other examples but, notwithstanding allegations of inefficiency against the MOD, defence has been underfunded for a generation, resulting in the present hollow state of all three services.

A genuine 3 per cent of GDP, as suggested by the chairman of the House of Commons Defence Committee, is urgently required if the Government is to fulfil its first duty of defence of the realm.

Vice Admiral John Mcanally National President,

The Royal Naval Association Portsmouth, Hampshire