UK defense spending worries Starmer government

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Speeches from an 80-year-old politician, who last served in government more than a quarter of a century ago, have little impact.

That makes the speech made nine days ago by George Robertson, defense secretary in Tony Blair’s first government and later NATO’s 10th secretary-general, even more extraordinary.

In July 2024, Robertson, who was asked by then-newly elected Prime Minister Keir Starmer to carry out a “root-and-branch overhaul of the British military”, delivered what the Financial Times described as a “catastrophic political attack” and respected defense and security journalist Deborah Haines called “the most serious intervention in defense spending since the end of the Cold War”.

In uncharacteristically frank terms, Mr Robertson accused Starmer’s government of having a “corrupt complacency” over national defence. He submitted the Strategic Defense Review to ministers in June last year, but pointed out that they had yet to set out a 10-year plan for funding it, in what he described as “sabotage” by “Treasury non-military experts”.

Noting that the UK spends five times more on welfare than it does on defence, Mr Robertson asked: “Are we convinced that this is the right priority, risking people’s future safety and security while maintaining an increasingly unsustainable welfare bill?”

He was praised by former defense secretaries and former secretaries of defense across the political divide. “In 1935, as today, we were spending less than 3% of GDP on defense. We were unable to placate or deter Hitler,” former British Army Secretary Richard Dunnett said in a letter to the Times.

“In 1939, when the war broke out, this figure jumped to 19%, and in 1940, when we were fighting for survival, it rose to a staggering 46%. This is a terrible cost of war that could have been avoided if defense spending had been increased even earlier,” Dannatt warned.

This funding shortfall – reportedly a £28bn funding shortfall over the next 10 years – is not new.

According to the World Bank, defense spending as a share of GDP fell from 4.1% in 1991, when Britain played a key role in the first Gulf War, to just 1.9% in 2018. This reflects the ‘peace dividend’ after the Cold War, austerity after the financial crisis and the end of the British presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. The government has pledged to raise this to 2.6% by 2027 from the current 2.3%.

But Robertson has amplified suspicions among defense secretaries that the Treasury is reluctant to hand over money to the MoD because of the MoD’s various procurement mishaps.

The most notorious of these was the £6.3 billion spent on the Ajax armored vehicle programme, but only 165 of the 589 planned were delivered. However, there were many other problems, including cost overruns, delays in the delivery of Astute and Dreadnought class submarines to the Royal Navy, and the costs of maintaining the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

Lack of funding sometimes led to conflicts between the services, particularly between the Navy and the Army and Royal Air Force. However, few would argue that this has led to a decline in staff numbers, recruitment, retention and morale. The latter reflects the substandard conditions endured by many service members and their families, as the 2024 Kerslake Commission pointed out.

“My first duty as Prime Minister is to keep the British people safe,” Starmer wrote in his foreword to the Strategic Defense Review.

Robertson spoke for many when he argued that at a time of increasing geopolitical instability, it was time for the government to provide sufficient funding to do so.

— Ian King

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April 22: UK inflation statistics for March

April 23: April manufacturing and services PMI data

April 24: GfK Consumer Confidence Data for April