Select committee: Defence Committee
Conclusion 48
First Report - Ready for War?
Published 4 Feb 2024
Addressed to Ministry of Defence
Defence Committee Armed Forces Readiness All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
These capability shortfalls exist despite the fact that the Army budget has increased over the past decade and investment in the Army as an overall proportion of Defence spending has been maintained. Between the financial years 2013–2014 and 2022–2023, the Army’s overall budget grew in real terms by 15%78 and over the past three years the Army consistently received around 25% of the overall budget, which represented the largest area of spending within MOD. The Chief of the Defence Staff told us that the British Army’s budget is currently £12 billion a year and will soon rise to £14 billion. This will “amount to more than £130 billion over the next 10 years, of which over £40 billion will be spent on equipment”.79
From: Defence Committee, First Report - Ready for War? (HC 26), 4 February 2024
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 25 April 2024 (deadline 4 April 2024).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees there is no regular mechanism to scrutinise readiness and offers an annual open session, releases some Defence Planning Assumptions headlines, and sets out its position on stockpiles, recruitment and procurement.
- On transparency, the government "recognises that the Committee should have public access to more information on planning assumptions and readiness" and releases headlines from the 2023 assumptions, committing to release "as much as possible" of the next iteration "when national and NATO planning processes have matured".
- It agrees the response time for the inquiry was slow and "will make every effort to ensure this is not repeated".
- On the £1.95bn from the Spring Budget 2023, it states the money "will be spent in full on measures to address gaps in our capabilities". It says exact stockpile holdings are "not releasable on the grounds of national security".
- On recruitment and retention, it says a formal response to each Haythornthwaite Review recommendation "will be published during 2024", with next steps for delivery and implementation for each.