Today’s defence news update covers issues including MOD spending, measures to tackle people smuggling and assistance offered to Ukraine.
DEFENCE SPENDING
The BBC has reported claims that this week’s Budget showed a reduction defence spending for the current financial year.
These claims are wrong and are based on figures that do not take account of either the current or full defence budgets, which have been provided to Parliament.
Last year’s summer Budget set a Defence budget for 2015/16 of £34.9 billion. As was reported at the time, this was adjusted by £500M from that set in the March 2015 budget as part of the government’s determination to eliminate the budget deficit without impacting on the baseline Defence budget, manpower numbers, or current operations. The final overall budget for 2015/16 – which unlike the partial figures cited in the BBC report takes into account both resource and capital spending – has increased to £35.2 billion as set out to Parliament.
The MOD can confirm that our commitments to spend 2% of GDP on defence, that the MOD's budget would rise by 0.5 per cent above inflation each year from 2016-17 to 2020-21, as well as that the Department would have access to the new Joint Security Fund, are unaffected.
MEDITERRANEAN PATROL BOATS
A variety of papers report that David Cameron is to press EU leaders for more international patrol ships to start turning back boats of migrants as soon as they set off on journeys across the Mediterranean from Libya. The reports suggest that the Prime Minister is set to push for a tougher deterrent strategy as he argues it is essential to destroy the business model of people smugglers.
PILOT OVERPAYMENT
The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mirror report that Army helicopter pilots have threatened to resign over MOD plans to make them repay thousands of pounds of flying pay. The reports suggest that around 200 serving and retired crew would have to pay back a total of £829,000 they received following an administrative error. An Army statement on this issue is below.
An Army Spokesperson said:
We can confirm that an overpayment of salary has been made to a number of Army aircrew personnel. We have apologised and explained the circumstances of the overpayments to all of those affected. In accordance with standard Government practice, arrangements have been made to revert their pay to the correct levels and all affected personnel are now receiving the correct pay. The overpayment of salary has resulted in an amount of debt owed by individual personnel.
NAVY ROBOTS
The Financial Times reports that the Royal Navy has enlisted drones for 'robot war games' off the coast of Scotland in October. The UK-led military exercise is said to beknown as Unmanned Warrior, where drones and autonomous seacraft will exercise with Nato troops. A Royal Navy statement is below.
Recognising a commitment to innovation, the Royal Navy will host a large scale demonstration of maritime autonomous systems as part of the wider Joint Warrior exercise in Oct 2016. A wide range of stakeholders from across industry, academia and other areas of defence have been invited to safely experiment and demonstrate the potential offered by maritime autonomous systems and so far 40 participants are expected to contribute to the exercise. The results of ‘Unmanned Warrior’ will allow the Navy to explore the feasibility of increasing the use of unmanned and autonomous systems in delivering maritime capability in the future.
UKRAINE
The Daily Telegraph reports that Britain is to sign a new defence pact with Ukraine, pledging to help the country with more military training and intelligence in its confrontation with Russia. The article suggests that the 15 year-long agreement will result in British troops taking part in more joint exercises and training with Ukrainian forces.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said:
The UK will stand firm with the Ukraine as they defend their territorial integrity. This new defence agreement sets out that commitment as we enhance our training of Ukrainian armed forces.
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