Defence expenditure {n°1965-6 is to reach the record level of « £2,120.5million. This represents 15s. 2d. per week per head of population or £39 8s. 4d. per year. It i: equal to £67 per second, or more than £4,000 per minute. Im monetary terms it is an increase over the 1964-5 estimate of 6 per cent though, as the Defence White Paper (Cmnd. 2592) ~oints out, the increase in real terms, allowing for the increase in prices, is 2.3 per cant. Para. 1 of the White Paper states that the plans which the present Gowermment inherited would have made necessary even higher estimates of £2,176m - this estimate has thus been reduced by 55m.
Mr.Denis Healey (Mimister of Defence) described the Waite Paper as "the first engagement in a long campaign to re-establish control of the nation's defence and take a firm grip both on policy and expenditure". And he. said:
"The fact is that we in Britain are still spending too much on
defence...we are still spending a higher proportion of our national
wealth on our defence forces than any other country of our size,
than any of our main competitors in world trade, and this expenditure
bears particularly heavily on our balance of payments and on the type
of resources, both in manpower and manufacturing capacity, which we
need most of all to get our economic situation right. We have made
a start this year - a small one but a . start." He pointed out, however, that there was a limit to the degree to which the problem of defence expenditure could be solved by savings on equipment; that the surest way of achievine reductions was to reduce the number of men in the services; these "Gannot be cut unless the jobs they have to do are cut", "That is why the Gowernrient 2re now engaged in a far-reaching review of all the jobs done by our armed forces.....+.+.in order to measure their overall costs against their value to the nation."
Four out of the fiwe Polaris submarines are Going ahead; it was announced on February W$th that the fifth had been cancelled which would save about £/5nillion in cavital cost. (This is for the boat and missiles; in answer to a question on Nowember 30th Mr.Healey snid that the capital cost of a five-boat programme including the base from which they would operate was estimated at £400m, i.e. BO each). Ts Government proposes that the four British Polaris submarines should-be allocated to the Atlantic Nuctcusr Force which should also include an equal number of U.S. Polaris submarines, the British Vebo-vers (axecurt "those required for commitments outside the NATO -reo"); "soe kind of mixed-manned and . jointly armed element or elements in which the existing non-nuclear powers could take part; and any force which France may decide to subscribe.
Tre White Pxper stresses the fact that "the cost of weapons tends to rise very much fatser than the nation's wealth. For examvle, between 1963 and 1968 the capital cost of equinving an armoured regiment in BAOR will double (@n 1964 prices); a gunner reminent in the sane theatre will cost three times as much; an infantry battalion six times as much. There is a similar escalation to be found in the Royal Air Force."
*this report and the two following tables are from