Army told to halt non-essential training exercises – reports

Sophie Wingate, Press Association Deputy Political Editor

The British Army has been told to halt non-essential training exercises in an effort to save money.

Troops preparing to be deployed or on deployments, those who are on standby or in a quick-reaction role will continue to train as normal, The Times and the BBC reported.

But collective training exercises for UK-based units are being suspended for most of this year amid budget pressures.

Now-cancelled exercises included ones involving tanks and Apache helicopters, according to the reports.

The Army did not deny the cuts and said a training regime that has been informed by lessons from the Ukraine conflict – such as on drone warfare and modernisation – is being prioritised.

Andy Burnham is under pressure to hike defence spending to 3% of national income by 2030, rising to 3.5% by 2035.

The Prime Minister was this week urged by the chairman of the Commons Defence Select Committee, Labour MP Tan Singh Dhesi, to “urgently commit to charting a pathway to reaching 3% of GDP spend on defence by 2030 which, as his Chancellor rightly noted, is critical to keeping our country safe”.

Plans set out in the Defence Investment Plan (Dip) will see defence spending rise to 2.7% of GDP by 2027/28, but there are no firm details on how further increases will be achieved beyond that date.

The Treasury has consistently said the Government will set out plans for reaching both 3% and 3.5% at the spending review, due to take place next year.

An Army spokesperson said: “Our training continues and we are prioritising activity that contributes most directly to readiness, deployability and operational effectiveness.

“We are also investing £2 billion to transform training for the British Army over the next 15 years.”

---

Get more trusted Welsh news

Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.