Day-to-day defence spending cut by nearly £10bn since 2010, new figures show

A member of the British army drives a tank as he takes part in a training session of British forces and Challengers tanks at the Ministry of Defence (MOD) training base in southern England on last year. Day-to-day maintenance defence budgets have fallen by nearly £10bn since 2010 figures show. (Photo by Daniel LEAL / AFP)

Day-to-day spending on defence has been cut by nearly £10bn in real terms since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, new figures have revealed.

Analysis of official data from the Treasury and Ministry of Defence shows there has been a 22 per cent reduction in resource spending of £9.4bn, from £41.9bn in 2010/11 to £32.5bn to the planned spend for this financial year.

The figures, from the House of Commons library, show the scale of how the Armed Forces were “hollowed out” by underspending over the past 14 years.

Resource spending covers day-to-day budgets such as funding for troops, repairs and maintenance of equipment and other daily running costs, and is separate to capital spending which is used for major new equipment purchases and infrastructure.

Rishi Sunak last month pledged to ramp up defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030. The announcement was welcomed by Conservative MPs who had previously criticised the government’s funding for the Armed Forces which had effectively left the services “hollowed out”.

Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to increase spending to 2.5 per cent but has not set a deadline for reaching that target.

MPs from all parties are expected to trade blows over the government’s record on defence spending during a debate in the Commons on Tuesday.

The government insisted that the defence budget had not reduced since 2010. The MoD said the 2024/25 figure did not include around £4bn on additional spending, consisting of £2.5bn for Ukraine, £280m for stockpiles and continued support for the building of Dreadnought nuclear submarines which were yet to be added to the defence budget.

But at a committee hearing last month, Labour and Conservative MPs criticised Defence Secretary Grant Shapps for claiming this extra spending was part of the core defence budget, when it had not been counted in the same way in previous years.

An MoD spokesperson said: “The defence budget has not been cut, we have announced plans to spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030 – meaning an additional £75 billion spent over the next six years.”