https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/brit...war-in-europe/
Britain appears to cut defence budget during war in Europe
https://publications.parliament.uk/p...1/summary.html
Public Accounts Committee, Nineteenth Report - MoD Equipment Plan 2023–2033
Summary
This year’s Equipment Plan (the Plan) reveals that there is a £16.9 billion deficit between the Ministry of Defence’s (the MoD’s) capability requirements and its budget, despite the MoD having increased the Plan’s budget by £46.3 billion. This is the largest funding deficit in any of the 12 Plans the MoD has published since 2012. It is also a marked deterioration in the reported financial position since last year’s Plan, which the MoD judged to be affordable but this Committee concluded was not and that is characterised by optimism bias. The real deficit, however, is even larger, because some parts of the Armed Forces have not included costs for all the capabilities government expects the MoD to provide, but only those they can afford. The Army, for example, could need around £12 billion more to fund all the capabilities the government seeks.
The MoD has not had the discipline to balance its budget by making the difficult choices about which equipment programmes it can and cannot afford. Instead, it has opted to assume—or perhaps, given the uncertainty, hope—that fiscal and economic circumstances will improve during the next ten years so that government will fulfil its aspiration to annually spend 2.5% of GDP on defence. This, combined with the marked deterioration in the Plan’s affordability, means that the MoD has not credibly demonstrated to Parliament how it will manage its funding to deliver the military capabilities that government wants…..