This defence plan dodges the real problems and simply robs Peter to pay Paul

Overdue and much-needed investment in the military has been finalised. It could give Andy Burnham one of his first headaches as prime minister

- Bernard Gray

A day late and a dollar short would be a polite view of the UK’s defence investment plan (DIP), which was finally published last Tuesday. A year, arguably two, late, and £15bn – or more likely £20bn – short might be a more accurate summary.

The British government faces two significant problems with its armed forces, and the DIP addresses neither of them properly. First, the existing forces have been run down over three decades of cheese-paring since the end of the Cold War. As with many aspects of UK public infrastructure, savings have been made by not fully funding the maintenance and upgrade works needed to keep the equipment in the forces up to scratch. When ships have gone for periodic refits, for example, only two-thirds to three-quarters of the full work programmes could be afforded within the refit budget. As a result, lower priority tasks get left, with a tail end of niggling faults gradually accumulating.

Just as with unfilled potholes in the roads, these smaller problems gradually get worse and merge, making the equipment harder and harder to operate. Eventually the ship becomes unsafe to sail, and the result is what we saw in the spring when the MoD tried to send a single ship to defend Cyprus from Iranian missile strikes. It took a month to get HMS Dragon moving, and by the time she left, the war had passed us by.