National Armaments Director

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)]

Let me begin by thanking you, Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr Speaker and the Backbench Business Committee for selecting this debate, which, if I may say so, is particularly appropriate in Armed Forces Week. Let me also thank the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), who is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench, for being here to listen to my speech. I hope the Minister will answer a few of my questions. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), the Chairman of the Defence Committee, who would have joined me following our joint application for the debate, but his Committee has been away from Parliament on a visit.

The defence budget is one of the most important estimates that the House can debate and scrutinise. With war waging in Ukraine, the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict and with what is now happening in Iran, our world feels increasingly unstable. The Prime Minister has recently returned from the G7 and is now at the NATO summit, ensuring that our interests align with our European, AUKUS and American allies, which is critical. As General Walker, Chief of the General Staff, said last July, we must be ready for war within three years, and the rest of my speech is devoted largely to that theme.

I wish first to discuss the figures in the defence budget. I think that most Members are pleased that defence spending is now considered a priority. The strategic defence review announced in early June was welcomed, and confirmed that defence spending would rise from 2% to 2.5% of GDP by April 2027, with an extra 0.1% going towards intelligence and security services contributions. There was a further commitment to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP in the next Parliament, but it has been noted that no date has been set so far. The new announcement by the Prime Minister at the NATO summit suggests that the Government will expect to spend 5% of GDP on national security and defence by the end of the next Parliament or by 2035, which includes 3% spent on core defence spending and 1.5% spent on resilience and security.

I ask Members to bear with me while I go through the somewhat complicated figures that this involves. In 2024, 1% of GDP was about £28 billion, according to the House of Commons Library, but hopefully our GDP will increase as the years go by. Members should note critically that a percentage increase in the budget is not the same as an increase in the percentage of GDP, hence the much higher figures that I am about to give. According to the Treasury Red Book, the current Ministry of Defence budget for 2025-26 is £62.2 billion, which is around 2.2% of GDP. For the Government to reach the needed 2.5% of GDP by 2027—setting aside the fact that the MOD budget does not quite align with the NATO-compliant spending—the defence budget must increase to around £70 billion in 2027-28. With the extra 0.1% that I mentioned earlier, the total is £72.8 billion. Therefore, another £9 billion to £11 billion needs to be found in the next two years.

If we are to reach 3% of GDP in the next Parliament, the defence budget will need to equate to around £84 billion in current prices. After today’s announcement, the equating figures are 3.5% or £98 billion on core defence and 1.5% or £42 billion on resilience, so the total spending by 2035 will need to be £140 billion. These calculations are dependent on the GDP staying the same and not increasing, in which case the budget will of course increase as well. I simply ask the Minister: where is all this money coming from? It is a huge amount of money.

Given the failure to produce the defence investment plan alongside the strategic defence review, the SDR is merely a list of ambitions and aspirations, with few receipts and invoices attached. When he gave the ministerial statement on the SDR, I asked the Secretary of State to confirm when we would be able to scrutinise the figures, but I understand that the defence investment plan is still an unfinished piece of work and is not due to be published until the autumn. That is a long way off.

I am Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, which is always looking at how effectively money is spent, whether it could be spent more effectively to give the taxpayer best value for money, and whether spending is feasible. However, the Committee has not been able to fulfil its statutory role of scrutinising defence equipment spending for at least 12 months. The last defence equipment plan was published in November 2022, and it set out a 10-year spending plan for equipment procurement, costing around £305.5 billion. There was a £16.9 billion shortfall compared with the money that was then available.

I am pleased that the permanent secretary accepted the invitation to come to our Committee in April to discuss the equipment plan, but he did not come with any proposals as to how and when we might be able to scrutinise the relevant defence expenditure, to see whether the huge aspirations were affordable in the current budget, in the next budget of 3%, or in the following one of 3.5%. It is really important that Parliament has a timetable for when we can do that scrutiny.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentioned the equipment plan; does he share the Defence Committee’s frustration that the last time anyone was able to scrutinise that spending was in 2022? Is he aware that when Lord Robertson came to the Defence Committee to discuss the strategic defence review last week, he was surprised that the Defence Committee was being denied access to the equipment programme—as indeed are the Public Accounts Committee—meaning that the Government simply cannot be held to account for what they are spending money on?

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend has made the case eloquently, and I have also made it. The Minister will have heard and, hopefully, she might have something positive to say when she responds to the debate.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

To what extent does my hon. Friend believe that the situation is even worse than he has outlined? Inflationary pressures bear far more heavily on defence than on, with the possible exception of healthcare, practically any other part of public spending, yet I see no evidence in the defence review or anywhere else over the past 12 months of that being properly accounted for by Ministers or those who advise them.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My right hon. Friend must have read my mind; when I come on to submarines, I will mention that very factor of inflation in defence costs.

The MOD is being reorganised into four sections: there will be a permanent secretary in charge of the Department; the chief of the defence organisation will be in charge of all personnel matters; there will be a new national armaments director in charge of all matters to do with procurement, digital and research, including all the matters to deal with what is now in the Defence Infrastructure Organisation; and there is of course the Defence Nuclear Organisation. This debate is focused on the national armaments director, whose appointment has been ongoing since it was announced on 17 December 2024. I am hopeful that the Department might soon be in a position to announce who they have selected to do the job, which I have to say is very prestigious and very large, with a very large £400,000 salary attached.

As I said, the national armaments director will be responsible for all defence procurement and all of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, including defence housing, as well as digital and research. This represents a huge part of the defence budget. He will have significantly more control over the acquisition process than hitherto. I hope that some of the Government’s announcements will come to fruition, including that on reducing the time it takes to award a contract to a two-year maximum, which the Department hopes to do by involving industry at a much earlier stage in the process, to help to solve problems. Rather than over-specifying on requirements, this should streamline things and simplify the contracts. It should also allow our defence sector to export more equipment to the international market, which will in turn support even more jobs in the sector.

One contract that demonstrates the weaknesses in our procurement strategy was that for the Ajax armoured fighting vehicle programme, which was contracted to General Dynamics. The contract was the subject of many Defence Committee and Public Accounts Committee inquiries and of many urgent questions. It was originally contracted in 2011 for delivery in 2017, then deferred to 2020-21. As we all know, the trials were halted due to safety concerns, and the contract was renegotiated for 2024. Perhaps the Minister could tell us when all 180 vehicles will be in operation?

General Dynamics was also awarded the infamous Morpheus battlefield radio system contract, which has cost £828 million so far. Will the Minister confirm that it is currently in the evolve-to-open transition partnership, and when its in-service date is likely to be? It was intended to replace the existing Bowman communications system by 2026, but that will now have to be extended with modifications to at least 2031, and possibly to 2035. That may leave a capability gap in our defence system. I think the whole House would appreciate an update on where we are with our tri-service battlefield communications system, and how it could be accelerated.

Another contract that should receive more scrutiny is the E-7 Wedgetail early-warning and control aircraft. Although the SDR says that we will procure further units, and share the costs with our NATO allies, the Pentagon has labelled the E-7 “expensive”, “gold-plated” and

“not survivable in the modern battlefield”.

Again, we would be grateful for further detail from the Minister on that contract.

As I said to the Minister in my question on today’s statement, I welcome the fact that the Government have committed to buying more F-35 aircraft—12 F-35As and 15 F-35Bs. The F-35A capability will be an alternative to our seaborne nuclear capability. Another huge commitment as part of the SDR is the one to invest in up to 12 new SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines. The submarines are due to be in operation in the 2030s and 2040s, with one being built every 18 months, but there are huge challenges ahead due to it being a new class of submarine and concerns with the lack of capacity at Barrow-in-Furness. No cost per submarine has ever been disclosed, and the programme is likely to take more than 10 years, so we really need to see some of the detail. Is the deal underpinned by the Government’s eventual commitment to increase expenditure to 3% in the next Parliament? We need to be able see whether it is feasible.

Speaking of long in-service dates, as I was in respect of the F-35s earlier—and the Minister agreed—we need to see the early work on feasibility and contracts beginning as soon as possible to meet the long tail into the buying, building and commissioning of the submarines.

This strategically important contract will, when costs are announced, need leadership from the national armaments director to ensure that it remains on track and on budget, unlike so many others before it. The Public Accounts Committee has asked for an update by the end of June 2026, which will demonstrate how well defence procurement has improved under the first year of the national armaments director group. The renewed focus on nuclear is important when looking at the ever-increasing nuclear enterprise budget. In 2024, the budget was £10.9 billion, which is about 18% of the whole budget. The 10-year defence nuclear enterprise costs have increased by £10 billion from £117.8 billion to £128 billion, and it is not clear whether the extra £15 billion announced in the SDR that has been committed to the warhead is included in that figure.

The budget is rising due to various factors, including technical factors, inflation, and the speed of manufacturing at which we now need to build these submarines to meet the timetable that is absolutely necessary for our defence. The budget is one of the few that is left unscrutinised due to the sensitive nature of these contracts, but as Chairman of the PAC, I am constitutionally obliged to see the detail. This needs to be resolved, and I am grateful for the commitment of the Secretary of State in working towards a solution. Sensitive scrutiny has never been more important, due to the context of the figures I announced earlier.

Defence personnel is another focus of the defence budget. The budget has had to increase by £14.3 billion to pay for the Treasury’s employer’s national insurance tax rise. The number of people leaving the armed forces is far too high. Last year, for every 100 personnel we recruited to the Army, we lost 130. This is completely unsustainable, especially as the SDR commits to increasing our armed forces to 76,000. The PAC recently held a session on cadet and reserve forces, and the SDR again clarifies that the Government want to increase the number of cadets by 30% and, critically, of reservists by 20%. Again, I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed how much that will cost.

We need to make joining the armed forces a much more attractive option than it currently is. Frankly, a prisoner would get better and safer conditions than some of the defence housing I have seen, much of which has mould, rust and leaks. This must change if we want to improve the retention and recruitment of our armed forces by giving them a better package of remuneration and conditions of service. I welcome the £1.5 billion to improve defence housing as part of the SDR and the £6.1 billion spent to repurchase 35,000 homes following the landmark deal with Annington Homes. This will allow the MOD to undertake major improvement schemes.

Another recruitment issue is the length of time it takes to enrol service personnel into training. We used to have an armed forces recruitment centre on every high street in the country. People could walk in off the streets, sign up and be wearing a new uniform within two weeks. There are now stories of recruitment taking well over six months, which is simply not good enough. We need to look further afield to ensure that the military has the right skills for the future. Cyber-warfare is becoming an increasing and real threat, and I believe the MOD could do more to recruit those with artificial intelligence and digital skills, but who would not necessarily meet the medical and fitness entry requirements needed for normal military personnel.

[Dr Murrison]

Would my hon. Friend comment on the Government’s enthusiasm or otherwise for the Haythornthwaite review of careers in the armed forces? It was put in train by and carried out under the last Government, but we hear tell that there has perhaps been some backsliding since. That is a pity, as Rick Haythornthwaite’s review was magisterial and had already shown signs, through zig-zag careers and the spectrum of service, of being appealing to servicemen and servicewomen, and holding them in—both in the regulars and the reserves. It would be a pity if that process did not continue on the basis of not-made-here-itis.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I cannot tell what is on the Government’s mind, but maybe the Minister will be able to tell us. However, given that the SDR makes it perfectly clear that they want to increase the numbers of our armed forces considerably, we have to consider every aspect of recruiting and retaining more. We must make sure that they do not just leave the Army or the armed forces as soon as they get particular skills. My right hon. Friend has raised a really important issue.

In conclusion, there is no greater duty on a Government than defending the nation, yet all Members of this House and the general public need to have confidence that our armed forces are properly equipped to do the job. That does not mean we can complacently give in to every demand, and it is the role of PAC members to carefully scrutinise the defence budget. Wasted spending and shortfalls are stopping our armed forces keeping us safe in the most efficient and effective ways. It is therefore imperative that the MOD releases more information on its finances in a timely manner, so that we can thoroughly scrutinise it and thus assure Parliament that our armed forces can do their job in the most effective way, with world-beating equipment.

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[Maria Eagle]

What the hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his speech was very simple, I must say. I understand the point that he has made, although I have not seen the answers to which he has referred, so I shall have to take his point away. I am happy to discuss it with him on another occasion, but I cannot give him an answer today.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I deliberately included a little bit about recruitment and retention in my speech. There will, I think, be a tension between the armaments director and the Chief of the Defence Staff over recruitment versus the budget for equipment. It is not possible to suddenly turn on the tap and recruit more people; it takes time. Can the Minister say anything today about when she will start to ramp up that recruitment?

[Maria Eagle]

A great deal of effort is already being made. Both the Minister for Veterans and People and the Minister for the Armed Forces are leading a number of efforts to improve recruitment and retention. As the House will know, in a “flow and stock” situation, it takes time to turn around a long-standing trend, and unfortunately the last Government did not meet the recruitment targets for the armed forces in any one of their 14 years. This is like turning around a supertanker. We have already made some reforms to try to speed up the time that it takes to recruit a young person who wants to join the forces, and that will start to show results in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I thank the Minister for that positive contribution. Twenty-five years ago, when we sat next to each other in the Public Accounts Committee, passing each other notes and holding the civil service to account, who would have thought that we would be in our respective positions now? I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) for his contribution. In fact, I thank all Members for a very positive debate. We look forward to seeing positive results from all the requests that have been made today, and to working with the Government, while strictly holding them to account for all the promises that they have made.

Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54).