Ex-chiefs demand more Forces cash

Ex-chiefs demand more Forces cash

Britain's Armed Forces are over-stretched and under-funded, a group of former senior military leaders and politicians has warned.
They have formed the UK National Defence Association, led by three ex-chiefs of the defence staff.

UKNDA president Winston Churchill said the amount the UK spends on defence "just doesn't add up" and should be about 3% of gross domestic product.

The defence budget has been set at £34bn for next year - about 2% of GDP.

The non-political group is calling for that figure to be raised to 3% or more.

'Full stretch'

Its patrons are former defence chiefs General Lord Guthrie, Admiral Lord Boyce and Marshal of the RAF Lord Craig, as well as ex-foreign secretary Lord Owen.

Wake up and listen because the soldiers are suffering on our behalf

Col Bob Stewart

Other prominent supporters include Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, and Patrick Mercer, the Conservative MP who serves as a defence adviser to the prime minister.

Lord Boyce - who was chief of defence staff during the 2003 Iraq invasion - said military personnel needed to be retained once they had joined the armed forces.

"We're finding at the moment that the forces are at full stretch and we can expect to be in Afghanistan for many years ahead.

"We need to recruit soldiers, sailors and airmen and we need to retain them when they come in.

"If people are seeing that the government is not prepared to support them properly then we're not going to get those recruits, we're not going to be able to retain people and we're not going to be able to deliver the commitment we should be giving to Afghanistan and indeed Iraq."

Promoting debate

Lord Guthrie, who served as chief of the defence staff under both Labour and Conservative governments, urged those involved in politics to "think very hard" about the future of the country's armed forces.

"I would ask politicians, and those who want to be politicians, to just think very hard about do they want to destroy and damage something which is really admired around the world and delivers for good and has never let us down."

Mr Churchill - grandson of the UK's prime minister during World War II - said: "At the time of the Falklands 25 years ago we were spending 5% of our gross domestic product on defence.

"Today it's down to 2.1% and we're fighting the two most intense wars we've fought since Korea."

Col Bob Stewart, a former British commander with UN forces in Bosnia, told the BBC's Breakfast that underfunding meant Britain was "sleepwalking into disaster".

He urged the public to "wake up and listen because the soldiers are suffering on our behalf".

The Ministry of Defence said it welcomed any initiative aimed at promoting informed debate about the forces.

But it added that military spending was due to rise by £7.7bn by 2011, extending the Forces' longest period of sustained growth since the 1980s.