Britain can no longer afford to be complacent about readiness for war
SIR – The concerns of General Sir Patrick Sanders, head of the Army, and Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Chief of the Defence Staff, about our military preparedness (report, April 24) demand an urgent response.
We should now be encouraging young people to join university officer-training corps, air squadrons and Naval training units. A discount on university fees in return for a commitment to continue with the reserves after university, and tax concessions or rebate of student loans after a minimum period of service, could be useful incentives and bring about a boost in numbers.
School combined cadet forces should be revived. Increased familiarity with the military among our young people may avoid the need for conscription of disaffected youngsters. Gp Capt John Skipper (retd)
London SW19
SIR – Britain has difficulties in recruiting people to the Armed Forces, so as a matter of priority our servicemen and women should be given a decent pay rise, and the deplorable state of Forces accommodation should be rectified.
This might encourage potential recruits to come forward.
Ted Shorter
Tonbridge, Kent
SIR – Rishi Sunak simply does not grasp the vital need to greatly increase defence spending immediately. He says the defence budget will have gone up from the current 2.32 per cent of GDP to the dizzy heights of 2.5 per cent by 2030. One can only assume that he has received assurances from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Hezbollah and the Houthis that they will exercise restraint in the meantime.
It’s not a question of percentages; it’s a matter of what is necessary. We need a defence budget that enables our country to make it clear to friend and foe alike that we are fully prepared to defend ourselves and have the ability to do so. If that means an immediate doubling or more of the current budget – which would result in spending a percentage of GDP that has plenty of precedents in recent history – then so be it.
Compromise on defence, and nothing else can be taken for granted. How many more times does this need spelling out?
Philip J Ashe
Garforth, West Yorkshire
SIR – Tom Sharpe (Comment, telegraph. co.uk, April 22) is correct that defence procurement spending needs reform, but his view that we should buy more off the shelf (ie from the United States) is flawed – and, indeed, dangerous. Buying British is not about job creation, beneficial though that is, but about maintaining essential sovereign capability, without which we have no operational sovereignty.
Despite being one of just three equity partners in the F-35 fighter programme, the UK has no access to the computer source codes, and where we buy from the US we are subject to its allocation of priorities for spares.
Furthermore, buying from abroad denies us the potential to export. The US is commercially ruthless, and applies regulations to block UK exports – something I experienced when I was a minister.
The first of the Royal Navy’s Type 26 frigates is costing £1.3billion (the Type 23 that it is replacing cost £130million), in part because the Royal Navy – not ministers – insisted on changing its specification. The Type 45 destroyer has had engine problems because the Navy – not Labour ministers – pushed for a novel design.
The current international crisis demands that we urgently increase the speed of defence construction, as the current Defence Secretary is determined to do. With the right leadership, we can achieve this here, as UK industry showed during the Falklands conflict.
Sir Gerald Howarth
Minister for International Security Strategy, 2010-12 Chelsworth, Suffolk