Briefing Paper: Is the UK Defence Budget Crisis Really Over?

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) appears to have balanced the £74 billion ten-year 'funding gap', but key equipment programmes, such as Trident renewal and Joint Strike Fighter, are still a major source of potential instability to defence budget.

When the Coalition Government came to power in May 2010, it identified a large ‘unfunded liability’ of inherited defence spending plans that was, it argued, ‘completely unaffordable’. Addressing this significant gap was the urgent task of both the Strategic Defence and Security Review as well as the defence reform initiatives that have followed it.

This briefing paper assesses the nature of the funding gap and the measures taken to close it. While the government and Ministry of Defence seem to have closed the gap on paper, it remains to be seen whether the assumptions will hold up, and whether events will have their own say.

Download the report here (PDF).