National security ‘cannot come at the expense of social security’.

           

 

 

By Lt Col Stuart Crawford

Andy Burnham says national security “cannot come at the expense of social security”. He repeated the thinking behind that assertion in his Labour conference speech, arguing that investment in people and stronger communities would make Britain more resilient and “more able to meet its NATO obligations on defence”. It is an attractive political proposition, but it avoids an uncomfortable piece of arithmetic. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that meeting Britain’s commitment to spend 3.5 per cent of GDP on core defence by 2035 will require finding around another £25 billion every year, in today’s terms, compared with the Government’s newly announced plans. Social security ultimately depends upon national security, and pretending we can substantially increase both without making difficult choices over taxation, borrowing or spending elsewhere does not make those choices disappear.

To be fair to the Prime Minister, it would be wrong to say he ignored national security altogether yesterday. He promised to remain steadfast in supporting Ukraine and to stand up to threats from Russia, Iran and elsewhere. But defence occupied remarkably little of a speech setting out his vision for Britain, and there was no serious explanation of how the Government intends to finance the enormous military rebuilding programme its NATO commitments will require.

The numbers are daunting. Britain spent about 2.3 per cent of GDP on defence in 2025/26. Under the Government’s Defence Investment Plan that is due to rise to 2.6 per cent this year and 2.7 per cent from 2027/28, remaining at that level through 2029/30. The Ministry of Defence budget itself is planned to rise from about £62 billion in 2025/26 to £79.1 billion in 2029/30, with £298 billion planned over the four years to then.

Those sound like enormous sums, and they are. But they still leave Britain some distance from the destination to which the Government has committed itself. NATO members agreed in 2025 to reach 3.5 per cent of GDP on core defence by 2035, while Burnham’s Government says Britain will reach 3 per cent during the next Parliament. The Government has yet to set out the detailed spending path from 2.7 per cent in 2029/30 to 3.5 per cent in 2035.

The IFS has put a useful number on the problem. It calculates that getting from the Government’s current plans to 3.5 per cent in 2035 would require finding approximately £25 billion more every year in today’s money. That is not £25 billion spread over a decade. It is roughly another £25 billion of annual expenditure by 2035.

So when Burnham says national security “cannot come at the expense of social security”, there is an obvious question: where does the £25 billion come from? It cannot simply materialise. Unless economic growth generates sufficient additional revenue, it has to come from higher taxes, additional borrowing, reductions in other expenditure or some combination of the three. Indeed, the Government has not yet identified how it will fund around a third of even the latest £15 billion Defence Investment Plan increase, according to the IFS.

There was precious little in Burnham’s speech about personnel, equipment, ammunition stocks, air defence, drones, cyber warfare, shipbuilding or the defence industrial base. These are not abstract military shopping lists. They represent the capabilities Britain needs if promises made to NATO and our allies are to mean anything.

Burnham had considerably more to say about the sort of country he wants Britain to become. He announced plans for a National Care Service, changes to the pensions triple lock after 2030, reforms to welfare and education, and policies on public ownership. These are substantial policies deserving substantial debate, but a Prime Minister also has to answer a more fundamental question: how will you protect the country in which all these things are supposed to happen?

The proposition that national security cannot come at the expense of social security gets the relationship between the two wrong. Hospitals, pensions, social care, schools and benefits all depend upon a functioning economy and a secure country. Defence is not simply another departmental spending demand competing with them. It provides part of the security framework within which all those other services can exist.

That does not mean writing the Ministry of Defence a blank cheque, nor does it mean dismantling the welfare state to buy tanks and missiles. It means accepting that government involves choices and that sometimes those choices are uncomfortable. A government which claims to be serious about defence cannot simultaneously behave as though defence spending is simply the money left over once everything else has been paid for.

For decades Britain and much of Europe benefited from what became known as the peace dividend. Governments could reduce defence expenditure and divert resources elsewhere because the immediate military threat appeared to have diminished. That world has gone, but too much of our political thinking seems to remain stuck in it.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrated that large-scale conventional warfare in Europe is no longer something military planners can dismiss as a historical curiosity. Iran and instability across the Middle East present another set of security challenges, while cyber attacks, drones, sabotage and threats to critical infrastructure have expanded the definition of warfare itself. The threats have changed and multiplied, yet our political debate still too often treats defence as the discretionary item.

Whenever additional billions are proposed for health, welfare or social care, the political argument tends to revolve around how the money can be found. When additional billions are required for defence, we begin discussing whether the country can afford it. Given the strategic environment Britain now faces, perhaps politicians should spend rather more time asking whether we can afford not to.

There is another uncomfortable reality which politicians frequently overlook: rebuilding military capability cannot be done overnight. You can announce a new benefit or change a tax relatively quickly, but you cannot suddenly manufacture experienced soldiers, sailors, pilots and engineers. Nor can you instantly produce frigates, submarines, combat aircraft, missile systems or ammunition. Military capability that is not funded today may simply not exist when it is required tomorrow.

I spent much of my working life in the Army, where one lesson becomes very clear: deterrence works best when an opponent believes both that you possess credible military capability and that you have the political determination to use it if necessary. Defence policy therefore cannot simply consist of saying Britain will fulfil its NATO commitments. The Government has to demonstrate how those promises will be turned into military capability.

How large do our Armed Forces need to be? What threats are they expected to confront? What equipment do they require? What industrial capacity must Britain retain? How much will it cost and, crucially, what other spending priorities may consequently have to give way? Those are difficult questions, but they are precisely the questions political leaders are elected to answer.

Burnham told conference that he wanted to be honest about what Britain could afford and that he would stick to the fiscal rules. That makes the absence of an answer on defence funding all the more conspicuous. There is a perfectly legitimate political debate about how much Britain should spend on domestic programmes and how quickly defence spending should rise, but the two cannot sensibly be discussed as though they occupy separate sets of national accounts.

National security and social security are not opposing ambitions, but there is an order of dependency between them which politicians sometimes seem reluctant to acknowledge. Without national security, everything else becomes vulnerable. A government can promise better pensions, better social care and better public services, but those promises exist within the protective framework provided by the country’s economic resilience, alliances and Armed Forces.

Burnham has now given us a detailed picture of the Britain he wants to build. What he has not yet adequately explained is how he intends to pay for defending it.

Saying national security “cannot come at the expense of social security” is easy. Finding another £25 billion a year for defence while keeping that promise is rather harder.

Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a former British Army officer and defence commentator and the Editor of www.defencereview.UK.

 

Lt Col Stuart Crawford’s latest book Tank Commander (Hardback) is available now

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