Ben Wallace Defends Plan to Cut Army Size

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace speaks during the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change's Future of Britain Conference in central London on July 18, 2023. Stefan Rousseau/PA

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace defended plans to cut the number of troops as he announced an updated plan for the military on Tuesday.

The Defence White Paper (pdf) confirmed that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) will press ahead with a previously announced plan to reduce the size of the regular army to around 73,000 troops and grow the strength of the Army Reserve to 30,100.

As of April 1 this year, there was 79,006 full-time trained personnel in the army, compared to 82,216 in April 2015 and 98,600 in April 2012.

Defence Committee Chair Tobia Ellwood said in a statement that it’s extremely concerning to many“ that the UK will have ”the smallest Army since the seventeen hundreds.”

“We need more personnel, not less, and relying on veterans and reserve forces is no substitute for a regular, professional Force,” he said.

Labour MP Stephen Doughty said the numbers “are simply not there to deliver on that diversity and range of threats.”

Mr. Wallace responded by saying he does think an army of “73,000 is enough to meet today’s threat.”

Responding to similar concerns raised by Conservative MP John Baron, Mr. Wallace said what’s “really important” is “we have to make sure that whatever we put in the field is properly equipped and enabled, and is effectively 360 degrees.

“We therefore have to be honest about the size of our defence budget envelope. There is no point pretending that we can have huge numbers without a defence budget to match,” he said.

Mr. Wallace also said that lessons from Ukraine show that the use of cheap drones and highly accurate artillery meant Ukraine could “allow fewer people to cover or dominate more area.”

Munitions Spending

Though critical of the downsizing of Army troops, Mr. Ellwood praised other aspects of the command paper for its “commendable ambition.”

The Defence Committee chair welcomed the extra funding earmarked for stockpiles, saying it would increase the UK’s military readiness and the overall deterrence strength.

The MoD said it will spend an extra £2.5 billion pounds over the next decade on munitions and stockpiles, which have been depleted by the war in Ukraine.

The war has exposed weaknesses in the British military, including the dwindling reserves of some munitions and a lack of industrial capacity needed to ramp up production quickly as Britain has supplied Ukraine with weapons to use against Russia.

The UK is not alone in facing the challenge. Gen. James Hecker, commander of US Air Forces in Europe, said in a conference in London last week that NATO countries should take stock of their munitions, according to Breaking Defense.

The stockpile in the United States is “getting dangerously low,” he said.

“We’re [at] roughly half the number of fighter squadrons that we were when we did Desert Storm,” he said. “So we don’t have nearly what we had at the heart of the Cold War.”

People and Technology

Mr. Wallace said the UK’s defence spending next year will pass £50 billion for the first time, and will increase it to 2.5 percent of GDP over the longer term.

The command paper includes a £400 million investment to better service accommodation, more flexible career paths, targeted training and education, and expanded childcare support for defence personnel.

It also said the military will continue to “diversify” its workforce, including through “increased recruitment of women and ethnic minorities,” and explore how to better “recruit and support people with disabilities.”

The MoD also launched a Defence Global Response Force.

“Ready, integrated and lethal, it will better cohere existing forces from across land, sea, air, space and cyber, to get there first in response to unpredictable events around the world,” Mr. Wallace described.

The department also pledged to spend “significantly more than £6.6 billion in advanced Research and Development,” prioritising artificial intelligence, engineering biology, future telecommunications, semiconductors, and quantum technologies.

Mr. Wallace warned that UK defence must shift its culture “away from the previous peacetime mentality to one where we live and operate as we would fight, focusing more on outputs than inputs and achieving a better balance between risk and reward.”

Mr. Wallace, who has said he would step down in the next cabinet reshuffle, told MPs he expects to make his “very last statement” as defence secretary on Wednesday.

Reuters contributed to this report.