Defence Secretary winning the battle to delay troop cutbacks
Williamson warns PM not to target Armed Forces as he visits soldiers in Iraq to praise their war against Isil
‘Eliminating the threat from terrorism is critical to our security at home and abroad’
GAVIN WILLIAMSON is on the brink of his first victory as Defence Secretary as a spending review proposing cuts to troop numbers is set to be postponed following an outcry.
Theresa May is expected to say that a national security and defence review should be split into two, with the security part proceeding as planned but the defence section put back by months.
Mr Williamson, together with a vocal cross-party group of backbench MPS, has argued that further cuts to the Army or Royal Navy would prove disastrous to Britain’s military capability.
No final decision has been taken on the proposal to divide the review, but it was discussed at a meeting shortly before Christmas attended by Mrs May and other senior ministers.
Delaying the defence element of the review would give Mr Williamson extra time to make a case for maintaining the fighting strength of the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.
There had been speculation that the review would decide to allocate more resources to intelligence and security at the expense of military personnel.
Since taking over from the disgraced Sir Michael Fallon in November, Mr Williamson, 41, has wasted no time in trying to win over the Armed Forces.
He has been involved in an ongoing row with Philip Hammond over spending and even banned the Chancellor from using RAF aircraft until he had paid his bills for previous flights.
Last month it was claimed that Mr Hammond, a former defence secretary, had told Mrs May that the Army only needed 50,000 soldiers, 28,000 fewer than it currently has.
Mr Williamson is understood to have convinced Mrs May that more time is needed for him to get to grips with his defence budget.
The Government meets Nato’s target of spending 2 per cent of national income on defence, and has committed to increasing defence spending by 0.5 per cent above inflation every year to 2021. However, the Ministry of Defence still faces a £20-30billion shortfall in its budget over the next decade to meet commitments to build new warships, aircraft, submarines and vehicles.
The fall in the value of the pound after Brexit, the rising cost of equipment and an inability to find savings by cutting back civilian staff have all been blamed for the budget black hole.
After a Strategic Defence and Security Review was carried out in 2015, the MOD said it would cut its civilian personnel from 56,860 to 41,000 by 2020, but figures released earlier this year showed it still had 56,690 civilian staff.
The MOD has said it “remains committed” to reducing civilian numbers by 30 per cent in the next two years.
Meanwhile, Mr Williamson has said Britain will not stop in its mission to destroy the global network of the “evil and barbaric” Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
Visiting Iraq for the first time, Mr Williamson said eliminating the threat from Isil was “critical” to UK security with the RAF having carried out more than a thousand strikes in the region.
“The dangers we face are changing and are intensifying rapidly. Eliminating the threat from terrorism is critical to our security at home and abroad,” he said. “Our brave Armed Forces are working tirelessly, day and night, to defeat Daesh (Isil) after helping to recover significant territory in Iraq.
“Only by defeating this evil and barbaric group for good will we reduce the deadly threat they pose to us, which is why we won’t stop until their global network is destroyed.”
Isil’s Syrian capital Raqqa was recaptured in October and in early December Haider al-abadi, the Iraqi prime minister, announced that Isil terrorists had been driven out of his country following three years of fierce fighting.
In Iraq, Mr Williamson met with UK personnel stationed in Taji, a coalition base north of the capital, Baghdad. He spoke with his Iraqi counterpart in Baghdad, visited the Iraqi National Security Agency and signed a statement of intent for a £10 million investment in Iraq’s counter-terrorism capacities.
More than 600 British soldiers are currently deployed across Iraq, training Iraqi and Kurdish forces.