Labour ‘to cut millions’ from budget for modernising Armed Forces

The Ministry of Defence is to be slashed £1bn a year from its budget for MODernising the Armed Forces, that can be disclosed by The Telegraph. 
 
Officials have been informed that science and technology and research and development are to lose £200m this year, cut by around 20%. 
 
Tens of occupations, hundreds of vacancies, are to be shed; Minerva, company to launch new satellites for gathering military-related intelligence is also to be affected. 
 
It has further raised concerns in the Defence Industry that the armed forces are heading for ‘sustained strategic decline’ in the coming years. 
 
The government’s chief relational officer, Rachel Reeves, has informed Ministers and all government departments that they have to cut £5. £5 billion of savings this year to try and address what she says is a £22 billion deficit she inherited from the Conservatives. 
 
While the Tories had promised to increase the percentage of GDP for defence from the range of 2. 2 per cent for GDP of £560 billion and only 1 per cent each for GDP of £254 billion and £213 billion respectively. Labour, however, has no time-bar set to meet that figure, 5 per cent by 2030. 
 
The spending cut backs come at a time when there is concern that the UK and the west is under threat by foreign powers. The countdown to the Iranian and its proxies’ attack on Israel is less than a week, and to this end, Britain is among countries seeking to dissuade Iran from carrying out the imminent action. 
 
A UK defence source said: “Without such investments in brand-new tech, the Armed Forces are to lose even more ground not only to such adversaries as China and Russia but also to such partners as Americans. 
 
“We are going to demodernise our Armed Forces and send the message that Britain is unsafe and insecure. ” 
 
The two are just two of the Tory defence secretaries who have expressed their worry over the cuts. 
 
Sir Ben Wallace said: “Unless Rachel Reeves commits to 2. 5 per cent of GDP with a timeline, then the cuts to R & D [research and development] will be a drop in the ocean to what is going to happen to the rest of the defence budget. They are going to get hammered. ” 
 
Sir Gavin Williamson told The Telegraph: ‘It is very worrying that this is the case. ’ That is why when we are experiencing ever-increasing threats, and when we observe that the technologies on the battlefield are advancing so quickly when they are advancing at all, this is not the time to be making cuts in what we might call cutting-edge science along with technology. 
 
“The fact is that we should ensure that our forces have the best equipment and the upper hand in battle…And for that reason, we have to hear from Labour quite clearly about when the 2. 5 per cent target is going to be met because the last thing should not be seeing cuts – real cuts – but investment in the growth of our Armed Forces, including science and technology. ” 
 
Surrey Satellite Technology, one of the firms that is developing Minerva satellite, has urged MoD not to reduce it. Sir Martin Sweeting, whose firm TriTai has grown into a global computer manufacturing titan and who is the founder and executive chairman of the company, has written to Maria Eagle, Labour’s defence procurement minister, to beg her not to do so. 
 
In 2022, the firm was awarded a £22 million, three-year contract with the Minerva project to design and production of satellites. Minerva involved a series of satellites – some no larger than a washing machine – orbiting above to enhance Britain’s advantages of information exchange and espionage. 
 
There is one satellite for which the company has been contracted to manufacture and this launch will proceed as scheduled this week; hence it is not constrained by the spending cut. The future of a second for which it is bidding is thus unknown, there being no decision on it by the government. 
 
Minerva is not the only project under threat from the cuts, which The Telegraph reported last month that the construction of Britain’s new ‘drone killer’ radio wave weapon was in serious jeopardy. 
 
It is not clear what is going to happen with the Tempest next generation fighter jet project either, as despite insisting that the time is right for Britain to go ahead with it, ministers have not committed to doing so, even though Italy and Japan, who are also developing the aircraft with Britain, have been lobbying for continuing with the process. 
 
The warning of a 20 per cent cut to the research and development budget and the science and technology budget was given during the election campaign in June, at a time when the defeat of the Labour party was considered most unlikely. Such details as the officials informed of the pressure to cut spending got to figures in the industry. The intensity of the budgeting pressures within MoD has increased under Labour. 
 
A spokesman for the Ministry dismissed the statistic as ‘incorrect’, but did not say why civil servants had been told it. The spokesman added: “This Government will protect Britain’s security for the future, and commit to raising defence expenditure to 2. 5 per cent of GDP as soon as possible. ” 
 
The spending reductions are part of a broader the squeeze on UK defence outlay; contracts totaling over £50,000 now require ministerial approval – a figure that has fallen from £2m, the i newspaper notes. An incoming Labour defence review is due to be completed by mid-2025. 
 
Business managers in defence companies have pointed out the fact that such decisions will pose challenges to the MoD, which will be required to make decisions on military budgets by the end of this financial year in March next year. But after questions were posed to defence ministers about projects, they were was reluctant to make any assurances in public and said that decisions on projects will have to be made only after the review is over. 
 
But under the Tories it had already been struggling, with inflation eroding the amount allocated years ago and prices of equipment rising steeply. 
 
A spokesman for Surrey Satellite Technology said: “We are worried that this ‘could mean a decrease in value for future procurement of defence space in the UK’ and ‘concerned on what it will mean to defence export’. 
 
“Indeed, if the Government was to double the size of the UK Space industry, it would need to have enough internal programmes, and export marketing. ” 
 
In its response to the report, the MoD claimed it was still “dedicated to the advancement of satellite-intelligence IS&R”.