The claim
Will the Secretary of State confirm whether he has any plans to reduce the size of the Army post-2015?
Labour MP Dan Jarvis, July 4, 2011
Nothing has changed in our assumptions since the strategic defence and security review.
Liam Fox Defence Secretary, in response, House of Commons, July 4, 2011
The background
There’s one clear lesson to be learned in Defence, the Government said in its first Spending Review since 1998; don’t leave it another 12 years.
British troops spent almost a decade in Afghanistan before there was a review of defence spending last October. And during that time, Labour blew a £38bn black hole in the Ministry of Defence’s budget.
The Strategic Defence Spending Review (SDSR) set out the blueprint for a Future Force 2020. But the Government made it abundantly clear that it was only making decisions for the next four years – because it wanted to see how things pan out.
“We are committed to undertaking further strategic defence and security reviews every five years,” the SDSR said.
“We have… identified the forces and capabilities we may need in 2020, but deliberately focussed in this Review on the decisions that need to be taken in the next four years, and left to 2015 those decisions which can better be taken in the light of further experience in Afghanistan and developments in the wider economic situation,” the SDSR said.
Today, just nine months after the SDSR Liam Fox announced a second, much larger wave of job cuts to the Army. Why is the Defence Secretary jumping the gun?
The analysis
A fortnight ago, Dr Fox was asked in the House of Commons if he had any plans to reduce the size of the Army after 2015.
The Defence Secretary replied: “Nothing has changed in our assumptions since the strategic defence and security review”.
The SDSR set out deep cuts to the Armed Forces – the MoD’s budget is to be whittled down by 8 per cent by 2015 with the number of Army troops dropping 7,000.
But as for the next five years, the Review admitted more work would need to be done to determine the numbers needed for our Future Force 2020. And it rattled off a list of reviews; including today’s review of the Reserve Forces, the recently published Defence Reform Review, and further efficiency measures and changes.
“All need to be taken into account at the next SDSR (in 2015), which will set out detailed plans for the five years beyond 2015,” it said.
Yet today, the Defence Secretary announced a further 10,000 Army jobs will go between 2015 and 2020. This will bring numbers down to 84,000 – well below the 94,000-strong Army that the House of Commons Library expects we will need by 2020.
Dr Fox’s answer is to boost the number of Territorial Army reservists, and the Treasury has agreed to give the TA £1.5bn over the next 10 years towards recruitment and training.
The TA has a current force of 31,000, with around 20,000 fit for deployment. Of our 9,500 troops in Afghanistan, the TA deploys around 570 on each six month tour, the MoD told FactCheck.
The verdict
Just two weeks ago Dr Fox assured the Commons that he’d stick to his guns on the SDSR’s findings. Any big decisions for post-2015 will be taken in the second Spending Review, in 2015.
But today we are told the Army will lose a total 17,000 troops by 2020 – a fifth of its manpower and almost double the number currently deployed in Afghanistan.
Dr Fox says that if his plans for the TA work, our total Army force will be 120,000 troops, 70 per cent regular Army, 30 per cent reserve. That’s 84,000 regular and 36,000 TA troops – just 5,000 more TA troops than there are today.
As well as allocating £1.5bn in funding over 10 years for the TA, the Treasury has pledged a 1 per cent rise in real-term spending between 2015 and 2020 for equipment.
All this while the economy continues to flatline and our combat troops still face another three years in Afghanistan; and the second SDSR is four years away.
By Emma Thelwell
