Ex-defence secretary joins army funds row
By Lewis Carter
Last Updated: 6:44am GMT 26/11/2007
A former defence secretary intervened in the military funding row yesterday, calling for an extra £25 billion to be spent on the Armed Forces.
The plea from Lord Robertson, one of Gordon Brown's former Cabinet allies, came as figures show officers are quitting the Army in record numbers, blaming cost-cutting and family separation.
Speaking on BBC Scotland's Politics Show, Lord Robertson, defence secretary from 1997 to 1999, said military spending should increase from 2.3 per cent to three per cent of the country's GDP - a £25 billion rise. The demand comes as figures released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) show that 1,344 officers have left the Army in the past six months, double the rate of the previous 12 months.
Capt Will Richards, 31, said yesterday: "We are overstretched and quite clearly underfunded. The incentive to stay in is no longer there."
Mark Pritchard, the secretary of the Conservative Defence Committee, said: "Soldiers are not being given the contact time with their families which they were promised."
A spokesman for the MoD said: "The UK's Defence budget is the second-highest in the world in real terms. The recent Comprehensive Spending Review settlement means an additional £7.7 billion for defence by 2011."
Surprised that this hasn't been linked. From yesterday's Daily Telegraph. Certainly didn't make the BBC News. I would love to meet some of these MOD spokesmen. I thought civil servants were supposed to be impartial!!