Treasury threatens to slash defence budget by £35 Billion!

[Always_a_Civvy]

Today's Times (27 February 2007) have reported that the Treasury wishes to cut expenditure on £35 billion of defence projects in the forthcoming spending round, and that the MOD is curreltly trying to argue that investment in the Trident replacement should be paid for seperately and not come out of the existing defence budget (not very likely).

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1444192.ece

 

[Passed-over_Loggie]

I don't suppose the subject of resignation cropped up.

 

[dunkers]

I thought the British defence budget was less than £35 bn?

 

[Karma]

The annual defence budget is, but the Equipment Programme (EP) is the toal sum required to invest in the various programmes which are ongoing at the moment; CVF which is going to Main Gate in about 2 months, T45, etc.

The EP runs out for the next 10 years, whilst the Short Term Plan runs for 3 years, the EP should budget for the STP requirements of the projects although from experience it rarely does.

Of course all this is in the process of changing as we tinker with the acquisition process again.....