A compromise deal could soon be reached with Conservative MPs angered by further UK defence cuts, as the chair of the Commons defence committee warned that spending had dangerously downgraded the place of defence in national priorities.
The international trade secretary, Liam Fox, acknowledged there were tensions over the potential cuts after several MPs spoke openly about their concerns, including former army officers Johnny Mercer and Tom Tugendhat.
On Sunday, Julian Lewis, the defence select committee chair, became the latest senior Tory to add his own warning about the impact of the cuts. “We now spend six times on welfare, two and a half times on education and nearly four times on health, what we spend on defence,” he wrote in a letter to the Guardian, saying the UK was now “barely achieving” the Nato target of spending 2% of GDP on defence.
Lewis argued that spending needed to be increased to 3%. “Setting ourselves a spending target of 3% of GDP for defence would not by itself guarantee our security, but without such an increase there is no prospect of recruiting personnel and buying equipment on a scale sufficient to avoid the ‘hollowing-out’ of our armed forces,” he wrote.
The new defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, is said to have asked for more time to respond to a security review scheduled to be announced early next year in order to get up to speed with work done under his predecessor, Michael Fallon.
Tobias Ellwood, the defence minister, has signalled he may be prepared to quit over the reported proposals that could lead to a reduction in the number of army personnel to 70,000.
Whitehall sources said they did not recognise the personnel proposal as an option on the table, pointing to the government’s stated objective to increase the size of the army to 82,000 from 78,000.
Fox said it was an “ongoing discussion … I’m afraid it’s not unknown for some of these tensions to spill over into the public domain.
“I think we should wait and see exactly what sort of compromise we reach – because that’s what it will be – and remember that the UK is the fourth biggest military budget in the world and is one of the very few Nato countries actually fulfilling promises to spend and help protect our partners,” he told Sky News.
Fox said there had been similar tensions during his time as defence secretary. “There’s always a lot of tension, not just between the MoD and the Treasury, but also inside the MoD between the different parts of the armed forces, and naturally there are concerns about the future shape of that,” he said.
Mercer, a member of the defence select committee, tweeted that there was significant unease across the party. “It’s a campaign, not a silver bullet, to get defence back where it needs to be,” he said. “Also worth noting this is not ‘my’ campaign or anyone else’s. it is the Conservative party as a team making sure we do the right thing for defence as a whole.”
Why now on Defence? We are crossing a threshold. Would be remiss of me not to point it out and do everything I can to ameliorate. Country first. pic.twitter.com/yU7txsULSM
— Johnny Mercer MP (@JohnnyMercerUK) November 25, 2017
Sir Nicholas Soames, the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, tweeted: “The Conservative parliamentary party has a duty now to unite against further defence cuts to capability.”
Soames and 24 other Tory MPs have signed a letter to Williamson, warning about the potential loss of amphibious assault ships HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, saying it would “dangerously limit the array of options” available to the forces.
The letter said: “We must make it clear to you that as a cohort of MPs representing a large portion of the government’s vote, we are not prepared to see the degradation of this nation’s amphibious capabilities any further in this capability review that the government is currently undertaking.”
Tugendhat, who chairs the foreign affairs select committee, tweeted support for Mercer, calling the cuts “a false economy”.
The Ministry of Defence said no decisions had been made. its permanent secretary, Stephen Lovegrove, said the appointment of the new secretary of state had been an unexpected delay and said Williamson had “strong views” about various aspects of the review.
“The secretary of state clearly has wanted to take a little bit of time to get up to speed with the work that had been being done over the previous few months, to see whether that accorded with his own view of where he wanted to take defence. So we are in that process at the moment,” he told a Commons committee this week.
Menzies Campbell, the former Liberal Democrat leader and the party’s defence spokesman, said the government needed to “listen and learn” after the criticism. “Former members of all three armed services, informed commentators, members of both houses of parliament and now a defence minister have all voiced their deepening anxieties about possible heavy cuts in the defence budget,” he said. “Reducing the army even further, cutting the Royal Marines and selling surface ships will fracture our defence capability.”
The Cabinet Office review, headed by the former diplomat Mark Sedwill, is looking at 12 different strands of UK security including the intelligence services MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, but it is expected the MoD will take the brunt of any cuts.
Other measures could include delaying the building of new frigates or reducing the number of F-35s for two new aircraft carriers.
