The British Army will reportedly halt “non-essential” training exercises amid a budget crunch, while the government faces calls to cut welfare spending to meet the nation’s defence needs.
According to a report from the state broadcaster BBC, citing an anonymous source within the British defence apparatus, the Army has been forced to cancel “nice-to-have training” sessions.
This will include planned live-fire exercises in which platoons will practise large-scale attacks at training sites in Wiltshire and Wales. One such cancelled training session was reported to include practice for the Royal Tank Regiment with tanks and Apache helicopters.
While the military is said to be focusing on other areas of training, like counter-drone tactics learned from the war in Ukraine, the defence source specifically told the broadcaster that the decision to cancel training was not the wish of the Army brass but rather as a result of budget constraints.
The British government has increased military funding as of late; however, much of this new funding has been directed towards weapons development projects rather than troop readiness exercises.
An Army spokesman said: “Our training continues and we are prioritising activity that contributes most directly to readiness, deployability and operational effectiveness. We are also investing £2bn to transform training for the British Army over the next 15 years.”
Nevertheless, the news will likely add further pressure on recently installed Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who has so far refused to commit to any spending cuts from Britain’s generous welfare schemes to help fund the Armed Forces.
