ianstone
08-13-2010, 06:49 PM
13 August 2010 12:38 PM
Chopping the choppers: helicopters facing big cuts
When a newly-elected Prime Minister Cameron held his first meeting with defence chiefs in Number 10, he was clear what his priority was.
"Right, first thing's first. How many more helicopters do you need?" the PM asked the military top brass.
I'm told that he was taken aback by the reply:
"Well, we actually have enough helicopters now, sir. That problem has been sorted."
Having double-checked this with senior sources, I'm told the exchanges are roughly correct. However, it's clear that the defence chiefs were not saying that they wouldn't like more choppers if offered.
This conversation may or may not be cited in evidence when the strategic defence review begins to dovetail with the Treasury's Spending Review.
But I understand that one of the big cuts - not mentioned at all today in Liam Fox's Big Speech - will be to the helicopter budget.
The armed forces were grateful to the Tories for pressuring Gordon Brown into buying more Merlins for Afghanistan and so this is going to feel particularly painful.
I've now seen a confidential internal MoD memo which sets out proposals for "flat-rate savings of 20 per cent" for rotary wing across all three armed forces. The figure given is for required savings of £3.96 billion.
A string of options is outlined, including the outright scrapping of the entire new Wildcat fleet, which was due to cost more than £1.7 billion.
Other options include accelerating the planned phasing out of Sea Kings and Pumas. One particular option to save a round £4 billion would be to "delete" Pumas, while reducing the number of Merlins and Crowsnests and Chinooks. No part of the helicopter fleet looks untouched. One option has the number of ground attack Apaches cut to 61, with Wildcats limited to just 21.
Dr Fox explicitly stated this morning that he was vehemently against "salami slicing" ie across the board equal cuts (he said that was the “lazy option” and would be “strategically dangerous”). That's all the more reason for some within the armed forces to fear this particular options paper on helicopters. If you are not salami slicing, you must be cutting some bits of the budget sausage more than others - chopping the choppers.
“Some parts of the armed forces work better than others. I don’t pretend it will be painless," Dr Fox warned, rather ominously, today.
There is an interesting sub-plot in all of this. The Lynx Wildcat - at around £28 million per aircraft - isn't cheap. But the armed forces are excited about its capability and expected replacement of Army and Navy Lynxes. One of its biggest backers is none other than David Laws*, whose Yeovil constituency houses the AugustWestland factory that hopes to make the new fleet.
It would have been interesting to see how he would have handled the issue as Treasury Chief Sec..
Senior defence sources stress that there is a lot of blue-sky thinking going on and no decisions have been made or will be made until September on SDSR cuts.
Still, for a party that once made helicopter numbers and funding a key attack line against the last Government, it would be ironic indeed if they oversaw big cuts of their own.
UPDATE: Nick Harvey, the Armed Forces minister, has already been softening up opinion on chopper cuts. A kindly reader sent me his words to the Western Daily Press last week, in which he queried a new order of 22 Chinooks:
"There certainly isn't any certainty we will get all 22, everything really is in the melting pot at the moment."
*FOOTNOTE: Mr Laws (whom I hear absented himself from items on Wildcat when at the Treasury) was once very critical of rumours that the Tories would dump Wildcat. He wrote in the Yeovil Express on July 20 last year:
“It would a disaster for both the armed forces and for South Somerset if there was any attempt to stop Future Lynx from proceeding. It is essential that Future Lynx goes ahead, to replace the existing fleet of Army and Navy Lynx helicopters. The Conservatives just do not appear to understand that we need both Future Lynx and a medium lift helicopter – and in my view this should be the British Merlin helicopter. It would be madness for the Ministry of Defence to think again on Future Lynx, and it would cause yet more uncertainty and delay."
However, the Wildcat (aka 'FutureLynx') is not without its critics, some of whom call it the "FatCat" because of its costs. I understand was not even subjected to the usual competitive tender arrangements. American firm Sikorski wrote to the MoD three times offering a cheaper alternative but were effectively ignored.
One MP who has been monitoring the Wildcat story is Douglas Carswell. "FutureLynx is the epitome of all that is wrong with defence procurement and is vastly more expensive than the alternatives," he tells me.
"If we really wanted to make sure defence spending was more efficient, we would have to start buying off the shelf and we would have to start with helicopters."
Of course, the very word "Westland" probably conjures up memories in the Cabinet of a previous Defence Sec who walked out all those years ago...
230PM UPDATE: Shadow Defence Sec Bob Ainsworth told Wato that the Treasury has "got its hand on his [Fox's] jugular".
He adds: “When it comes to defence the Conservatives have said one thing in opposition and something else in government"
He says that cutting helicopters "really would be the ultimate irony".
Chopping the choppers: helicopters facing big cuts
When a newly-elected Prime Minister Cameron held his first meeting with defence chiefs in Number 10, he was clear what his priority was.
"Right, first thing's first. How many more helicopters do you need?" the PM asked the military top brass.
I'm told that he was taken aback by the reply:
"Well, we actually have enough helicopters now, sir. That problem has been sorted."
Having double-checked this with senior sources, I'm told the exchanges are roughly correct. However, it's clear that the defence chiefs were not saying that they wouldn't like more choppers if offered.
This conversation may or may not be cited in evidence when the strategic defence review begins to dovetail with the Treasury's Spending Review.
But I understand that one of the big cuts - not mentioned at all today in Liam Fox's Big Speech - will be to the helicopter budget.
The armed forces were grateful to the Tories for pressuring Gordon Brown into buying more Merlins for Afghanistan and so this is going to feel particularly painful.
I've now seen a confidential internal MoD memo which sets out proposals for "flat-rate savings of 20 per cent" for rotary wing across all three armed forces. The figure given is for required savings of £3.96 billion.
A string of options is outlined, including the outright scrapping of the entire new Wildcat fleet, which was due to cost more than £1.7 billion.
Other options include accelerating the planned phasing out of Sea Kings and Pumas. One particular option to save a round £4 billion would be to "delete" Pumas, while reducing the number of Merlins and Crowsnests and Chinooks. No part of the helicopter fleet looks untouched. One option has the number of ground attack Apaches cut to 61, with Wildcats limited to just 21.
Dr Fox explicitly stated this morning that he was vehemently against "salami slicing" ie across the board equal cuts (he said that was the “lazy option” and would be “strategically dangerous”). That's all the more reason for some within the armed forces to fear this particular options paper on helicopters. If you are not salami slicing, you must be cutting some bits of the budget sausage more than others - chopping the choppers.
“Some parts of the armed forces work better than others. I don’t pretend it will be painless," Dr Fox warned, rather ominously, today.
There is an interesting sub-plot in all of this. The Lynx Wildcat - at around £28 million per aircraft - isn't cheap. But the armed forces are excited about its capability and expected replacement of Army and Navy Lynxes. One of its biggest backers is none other than David Laws*, whose Yeovil constituency houses the AugustWestland factory that hopes to make the new fleet.
It would have been interesting to see how he would have handled the issue as Treasury Chief Sec..
Senior defence sources stress that there is a lot of blue-sky thinking going on and no decisions have been made or will be made until September on SDSR cuts.
Still, for a party that once made helicopter numbers and funding a key attack line against the last Government, it would be ironic indeed if they oversaw big cuts of their own.
UPDATE: Nick Harvey, the Armed Forces minister, has already been softening up opinion on chopper cuts. A kindly reader sent me his words to the Western Daily Press last week, in which he queried a new order of 22 Chinooks:
"There certainly isn't any certainty we will get all 22, everything really is in the melting pot at the moment."
*FOOTNOTE: Mr Laws (whom I hear absented himself from items on Wildcat when at the Treasury) was once very critical of rumours that the Tories would dump Wildcat. He wrote in the Yeovil Express on July 20 last year:
“It would a disaster for both the armed forces and for South Somerset if there was any attempt to stop Future Lynx from proceeding. It is essential that Future Lynx goes ahead, to replace the existing fleet of Army and Navy Lynx helicopters. The Conservatives just do not appear to understand that we need both Future Lynx and a medium lift helicopter – and in my view this should be the British Merlin helicopter. It would be madness for the Ministry of Defence to think again on Future Lynx, and it would cause yet more uncertainty and delay."
However, the Wildcat (aka 'FutureLynx') is not without its critics, some of whom call it the "FatCat" because of its costs. I understand was not even subjected to the usual competitive tender arrangements. American firm Sikorski wrote to the MoD three times offering a cheaper alternative but were effectively ignored.
One MP who has been monitoring the Wildcat story is Douglas Carswell. "FutureLynx is the epitome of all that is wrong with defence procurement and is vastly more expensive than the alternatives," he tells me.
"If we really wanted to make sure defence spending was more efficient, we would have to start buying off the shelf and we would have to start with helicopters."
Of course, the very word "Westland" probably conjures up memories in the Cabinet of a previous Defence Sec who walked out all those years ago...
230PM UPDATE: Shadow Defence Sec Bob Ainsworth told Wato that the Treasury has "got its hand on his [Fox's] jugular".
He adds: “When it comes to defence the Conservatives have said one thing in opposition and something else in government"
He says that cutting helicopters "really would be the ultimate irony".