Comments on: Budget 2010: Defence procurement cuts needed

By: Coalition sacks brave troops rather than risk anger of defence contractors | Left Foot Forward

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:45:30 +0000

[...] in the number of service men and women in order to save money, whilst continuing with massive defence procurement spending – drawing criticism from the Pentagon and the tabloid press [...]

By: Coalition defence plans too vague on Trident & Afghanistan | Left Foot Forward

Fri, 21 May 2010 10:57:22 +0000

[...] agreement avoids any reference to tough procurement decisions on the Joint Strike Fighter, supercarriers or Future Rapid Effects Sysetm in favour of a bland [...]

By: Progressive preview of tonight's defence & foreign policy debate | Left Foot Forward

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 09:56:26 +0000

[...] means that a post-election Labour government would face strong pressure to consider major procurement spending on Trident, the Joint Strike Fighter and the super carrier project in the context of the next [...]

By: Matthew Knowles

Matthew Knowles — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:19:00 +0000

There cannot be a worthwhile Strategic Defence Review if budget decisions are taken before the SDR has been completed. The large costs of projects cited in the blog are for over periods of decades so they are inflated numbers, the yearly budgets are much lower. For reference the entire annual MoD budget is around £38 billion out of around £750bn total Government expenditure or 5% of the total. Furthermore, defence as a % of GDP has halved over the past 20 years while other Government departments’ budgets have risen (see http://is.gd/aRIli). Defence has made its contribution to public sector savings. It is time that other departments faced the same budgetary scrutiny & pressure as the MoD has done for several years.