Ben Wallace: We will pay for tanks but not more troops

Britain must pay for tanks, not more troops, the Defence Secretary has said ahead of a major announcement on the military’s plans in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

Ben Wallace said reversing cuts to the size of the Army would have meant sending troops into battle equipped with “pitchforks” instead of high-tech weapons because of the constraints of the defence budget. 

He made the comments ahead of the publication of the Defence Command Paper on Tuesday, which has been updated from its original publication in 2021 in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

The paper outlines how the military will modernise and adapt to the “changing global picture” as well as prioritise investment in science and technology. 

Mr Wallace previously announced that the number of fully trained soldiers would fall to 73,000 by 2025 – its smallest size ever, down from 82,000. 

He said: “I’m not prepared to cut the Armed Forces by about £5 billion to put on a postcard ‘I’m going to go back to 82,000’.  You’ve got to equip those soldiers with married accommodation, barracks, night sights, helmets, guns, whatever equipment you’re going to give them. 

“If it’s going to be a battle group, are you going to buy 300 armoured vehicles or am I just going to give them a pitchfork? I mean, that’s the choice.” 

Mr Wallace said the fundamental lesson from Ukraine was that a military needed to be “perfectly formed”.  

“You better be 360. And you better be enabled. And I’m not prepared to sacrifice that just to satisfy a top trump card,” he said.

He added that his job was to get the military “match fit” should the country wish to expand its Armed Forces in the future.

The plan, set to be announced in Parliament on Tuesday, pledges £2.5 billion investment in stockpiles to improve the war-fighting readiness of the Armed Forces. On top of this will be £400 million to modernise accommodation for service families. 

It also pledges that the military will become a science and technology superpower by enhancing its capabilities in robotics, human augmentation and laser guns.

However, defence officials said the paper’s overwhelming focus was on “learnings from the war in Ukraine” in order to deliver a “credible war-fighting force that will keep us on track to act as a global heavyweight both now and in the future”.

Adml Sir Tony Radakin, the Chief of the Defence Staff, revealed that Russian tanks destroyed by Ukrainians were currently being dissected at Porton Down to learn details of their tactics. 

“It is really important because we are in a club of nations that, when we get hold of Russian kit or other nations’ kit that might be a danger to us in the future, we share that knowledge,” said Sir Tony.

“We have the scientists that unpick the detail that another nation might have to a really forensic level and that helps us to understand how does their equipment work, how can we defeat it, how can we have even better armour, how can we disrupt their communications, how can we ensure that we can penetrate their defences – that is what we do.” 

Last month, Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, the Chief of the General Staff, said the UK cannot “hide behind” the armies of its Nato allies and compared “outdated” tanks to “rotary dial telephones in an iPhone age”.

Mr Wallace denied that was the case and said cutting troops – which Labour has pledged to reverse if it wins power at the next election – had not weakened the military. 

He also insisted the Ministry of Defence would invest in tanks, which he described as “a fundamental part of an army”.

“We do need tanks, no one is writing off tanks,” he said. “But whatever tanks we have, we need to invest in them to make sure they’re properly defendable, properly deployable and they’re properly serviceable.” 

Mr Wallace, who last week announced he will resign as Defence Secretary at the next reshuffle, said his legacy would not be defined by overseeing the cuts to the size of the Army. 

“Our legacy is a more modernised Armed Forces,” he said, adding that there was “no point having ships bubble-wrapped up” and “no point in having tanks in warehouses that don’t work”. 

“You will have a more lethal, more enabled, more globally deployed force,” he said. 

Mr Wallace said the paper was delivering a holistic approach to the military by “breaking down all the different barriers” and introducing integration across the three forces. 

He suggested that, in future, the ability to land long-range strikes from the sea could be done by an infantryman with his mobile phone as opposed to relying on submarines. 

He also said forces that cannot integrate with each other are “less efficient and less productive and less dangerous together”.

Mr Wallace said the command paper was not “a nice little shopping list” and was ultimately about “laying the groundwork for industry and others to say: this is what we need to look like in the future”.