Harry Lye 11 March 2020 (Last Updated March 11th, 2020 15:53) The UK Government's 2020 Budget includes £100m in additional funding for defence research and development (R&D) and funding to support overseas buyers of UK defence and security equipment. Royal Air Force and the army have scrapped or downsized projects after budget issues, First published on Thu 27 Feb 2020 10.41 EST. MoD equipment budgets are spent on procuring submarines, warships, aircraft and armoured vehicles. If all risks materialised, the shortfall in the 2019 to 2029 equipment plan would balloon to £13bn. “The department is progressing towards managing down the legacy liability that it has inherited over the years.”. It also includes budgets to service existing equipment, including Typhoon aircraft, and introducing modern technology. Britain’s military will have fewer armoured vehicles, aircraft and lose the use of its only naval hospital ship because of a shortfall of up to £13bn in its 10 year equipment budget, the government spending watchdog warned. The financial shortfall is even more acute in the first half of the 10-year cycle, the NAO warned, saying the ministry had a £6bn budget shortfall of budget up to 2023-24. Because of the loss of control, the army has been forced to upgrade fewer tanks and has abandoned various other anti-armour projects, while the Royal Air Force is only able to afford 48 of the 114 F-35 jets it had hoped to buy, the auditor added. A decision to delay the introduction of the next generation Protector drone will only increase long term costs, the NAO said. In one case, desperate officials paid Boeing $8.2m (£6.4m) just to delay submitting invoices so that the main spending would take place in future years – and only sought permission from the Treasury after the auditor raised concerns. Welcoming the new budget, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon … Image: HM Treasury. For example, there is no budget to replace or extend the life of the RFA Argus, a 100-bed naval hospital ship, beyond 2024. The UK is also set to increase spending on diplomatic efforts giving more money to embassies and consulates across the world. The Protector delay would add £187m to the budgets in future years, plus a further £50m to retain the existing generation of Predator drones for longer. This cannot carry on. The detailed rebuke comes two days after Boris Johnson announced a strategic review of the government’s defence and foreign policy, which came with a hint that spending on the armed forces could increase beyond the current 2.1% of GDP, creating the hope that taxpayers’ money could plug the gap. According to the NAO, the MoD is planning to spend £183.6bn in the next decade – £2.9bn over budget. Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, accused the department of not making “the necessary strategic decisions” and said that it had tried to plug gaps with a “short-term focus on living within annual budgets”. The department is locked into short-term thinking, wasting taxpayer’s money, and has missed two chances to sort things out.”. The government auditor said the lack of financial discipline was “increasingly affecting the armed forces’ ability to maintain and enhance the UK’s military capability” – and that it was the third year in a row the budget had been breached. What’s in the Budget for UK Defence in six tweets. Currently, the MOD budget is £38.8bn, with the increase in funding set to raise the budget nearly £40bn. According to the NAO, the MoD is planning to spend £183.6bn in the next decade – £2.9bn over budget. The MoD is at risk of losing capabilities such as the floating hospital ship RFA Argus, auditors said.

The spending review will outline the budget of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) for the period of 2020-2021. An MoD spokesperson said: “Managing these ambitious, complex programmes can be challenging, but we have already achieved £7.8bn of efficiency savings and last year secured an extra £2.2bn for defence. Meg Hillier, the chair-elect of the Commons public accounts committee, said: “For the third successive year, the equipment plan is unaffordable. Stewart MacDonald, the SNP’s defence spokesman, said the NAO’s verdict amounted to “an abject failure of Tory defence policy” and warned that “the United Kingdom is rapidly becoming the ‘hollow force’ experts have long warned that it would”. The National Audit Office (NAO) said the inability of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to control its spending was starting to affect Britain’s military capability, and accused it of having a short term focus that risked making the situation worse in the future. Boris Johnson announced a strategic review of the government’s defence and foreign policy, who has been highly critical of the soaring costs of MoD procurement. This means the Defence budget will increase by nearly £5bn to £39.7bn in 2020/21. However, it will run by Downing Street and the Cabinet Office, and one of its key figures will be Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s chief aide, who has been highly critical of the soaring costs of MoD procurement.

But NAO insiders argued that the most significant impacts on military capability were due to a failure to prioritise. If all risks materialised, the shortfall … The budget includes an additional £100m for UK Defence R&D.