Philip Hammond: cut welfare not troops

The Defence Secretary today warns that the Armed Forces cannot sustain further cuts and demands that the welfare bill is reduced to reflect rising levels of employment instead.

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The Defence Secretary disclosed that he would strongly resist future cuts to the military Photo: Lee Thompson

 

In an interview with The Telegraph, Philip Hammond makes public concerns that will be raised in forthcoming Cabinet talks on spending cuts due to be implemented by George Osborne after 2015.

He says the “first priority” must be “defending the country and maintaining law and order” and that further defence cuts are not possible while meeting stated security objectives.

Mr Hammond says there is a “body of opinion within Cabinet who believes that we have to look at the welfare budget again” because a 0.5 per cent saving from the benefits bill would protect the Armed Forces.

He adds that “we should be seeing welfare spending falling” as a result of rising levels of employment. The unusually frank public intervention from a loyal senior Conservative minister is unlikely to be welcomed by Mr Osborne and the Prime Minister because it lays bare deep divisions over future spending decisions.

There have been rumours of a “union of ministers” blocking further cuts and Mr Hammond today indicates that this is the case. His comments are also expected to add to tensions within the Coalition because the Liberal Democrats are opposed to more welfare cuts.

His intervention comes after the Conservatives slumped to an embarrassing third place in the Eastleigh by-election, behind Ukip, leading to demands for David Cameron to develop a more “Tory” agenda, with issues such as security and immigration at the fore.
Speaking on a visit to an Arctic training camp for the Royal Marines before the by-election result, the Defence Secretary disclosed that he would strongly resist future cuts to the military, beyond moderate “efficiency savings”.
“I shall go into the spending review fighting the case for the defence budget on the basis that we have made very large cuts to defence, we’ve done that with the collaboration and cooperation of the military,” he said.
“Any further reduction in the defence budget would fall on the level of activity that we were able to carry out — the idea that expensively bought equipment may not be able to be used, expensively employed troops may not be able to be exercised and trained as regularly as they need to be.”
He added: “I am not going into the spending review offering any further reductions in personnel. In my judgment, and I think the Chancellor and the Prime Minister would both agree with this, the Armed Forces are at the smallest level that is appropriate for the kind of defence posture that we have set out in the SDSR [2010’s Strategic Defence and Security Review]. It isn’t clear to me that we could go any smaller while retaining the range of capabilities and commitments that the SDSR requires of us.”
The Chancellor and Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, are drawing up plans for the next spending review, covering the year 2015-16.
While budgets for health, education and international development will be protected, the Ministry of Defence could be expected to reduce costs by at least another £500 million. The MoD is still midway through the current round of spending cuts, despite having already made thousands of troops redundant. Some 30,000 will be cut from the number of serving personnel, many thousands of whom will go in the next two years.
Last month, Mr Cameron caused confusion by indicating that he would increase overall defence spending from 2015, only for aides to say later that this would only apply after 2016.
Today, Mr Hammond criticises Nick Clegg for not placing any Liberal Democrats in the MoD. A Conservative source added: “There’s a real concern that the Lib Dems want to protect the benefits culture at the expense of our troops.”