Brown promises more money for defence, but fails to silence critics.

Chancellor Gordon Brown promised "real terms increases" in defence spending in this year's budget speech. He also outlined his plan for maintaining Britain’s stability and status as a world power. But his bombastic performance at the dispatch box was overshadowed by an embarrassing report from the Commons Defence Committee released one day earlier.

The report titled “Lessons of Iraq”, criticised the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for sending British troops into battle without basic equipment. It highlighted “alarming shortages” of supplies such as body armour, chemical warfare suits and night vision goggles and said, “a more capable enemy could have exposed serious weaknesses in the preparedness and resilience of UK forces.”

Shadow defence secretary Nicholas Soames said of the committee’s findings: “it is utterly disgraceful that many troops went into Iraq with insufficient ammunition, and a shortage of body armour. It is clear that this situation came about because of the Government’s political indecision and avoidable delays in the ordering of equipment. This amounts to a systemic failure and cannot happen again.”

Mr Soames, who says a future Conservative government would halt cutbacks in the armed forces, called for ministers to “match resources to commitments”. However, it is alleged that Mr Soames has run into conflict with shadow chancellor Oliver Letwin over his own plans to restrict defence spending. Labour claims that the Conservatives would cut defence spending by £1.5 billion over the next two years.

The Defence Committee’s report was the latest in a succession of embarrassing revelations about a British military that is under funded, over stretched and in dire need of reform. In January, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon was harshly criticised by the widow of tank commander Sergeant Steven Roberts, who was killed in Iraq after being ordered to hand over his body armour to an infantryman, because there was not enough for every soldier.

Days later, the MoD revealed cost overruns on weapons systems such as the Typhoon Eurofighter, Nimrod reconaissance aircraft and Astute class nuclear submarines, of £3 billion. Despite the Chancellor’s promises of increased spending, the MoD budget remains tightly stretched. To date, £3.8 billion has been allocated to fight the war in Iraq, with a total of £6.3 billion for all operations in the war on terror. However, analysts estimate the cost of keeping British soldiers in Iraq at around £80 million a month, and foreign secretary Jack Straw has said troops may have to remain there for three years.

A letter from defence secretary Hoon to the Prime Minister leaked earlier this month also pointed to conflict over defence spending within the cabinet. According to The Times, Mr Hoon appealed over the head of the Chancellor, warning that suggested cuts of £1.2 billion from the MoD budget would put current and future operations in the war on terror seriously at risk. In the wake of what appears to be the first al-Qa’ida attack on continental Europe, in Madrid, such operations would seem more important than ever. - April 2004