Former defence ministers are wrong to issue a stark warning that the UK is unprepared for war as a “whole-nation endeavour”, the deputy prime minister has said.
The outgoing defence minister, James Heappey, called on ministers to do more to prepare for conflict just weeks after resigning from his Ministry of Defence (MoD) post, saying the UK has failed to prepare for war.
His former boss Ben Wallace echoed his sentiments, suggesting some in government are just hoping threats to the UK “will go away”.
Labour has described it as “an alarming admission”, adding: “The cost of Tory chaos is a government that doesn’t take the UK’s defence seriously.”
Oliver Dowden hit back, saying “they are wrong”. He told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show: “We are taking action across the board. We have set up a national cybersecurity centre in respect of cyber. I now take dozens of decisions daily about investment to protect our economic security.
“This world is going to get more dangerous as time goes on. We see a combination of hostile states, not least Russia, Iran, North Korea and China.
“We need to be taking action across those areas. Of course there is always more to do, but I believe we are making good progress against rising threat.”
Heappeywrote in the Sunday Telegraph that the UK was behind its allies who have taken steps to reinforce citizens’ preparedness for war.
He wrote that he had urged ministers to prepare for conflict and take part in a “whole of government” exercise, first championed by Wallace, to practice evacuating to a bunker because of the “growing instability and insecurity directed at Britain”.
But only MoD officials took part, despite certain cabinet ministers having access to reserved beds and desks in the UK’s wartime bunker.
“It’s a stark reminder that war is a whole-nation endeavour and, to be frank, in the UK we’re a very long way behind,” he wrote.
Wallace echoed his criticisms in the newspaper, saying there were too many people in the government relying on hoping the current instability would go away.
He said: “The growing instability and insecurity directed at Britain and her allies means that the whole of society needs to make a step change towards recognising that our core duty is to think about our defence and our resilience.
“It’s how we used to think during the cold war, and everyone from local government to the MoD played their part.”
A Labour spokesperson said: “Since 2010, the Conservatives hollowed out our armed forces, cut the army to its smallest size since Napoleon, wasted billions of pounds in defence procurement, and overseen service morale fall to record lows.
“Labour knows the first duty of any government is to keep the nation safe and protect our citizens. We will always do what’s required to defend this country.”
The government has belatedly started reviewing its national plan for the defence of the UK in the event of a war, after mounting threats of conflict.
Heappey has called for a focus on strategic resilience including securing food and energy supples, more money for defence, and repurposing industry to build weapons.
Rishi Sunak is under pressure to increase defence spending. Last month, Foreign Office minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Home Office minister Tom Tugendhat publicly called for defence spending to reach at least 2.5% of GDP.
