London: The United Kingdom’s defence estate is too large, costs too much, and attempts to reform and downsize it have been woefully inadequate, according to the parliamentary watchdog tasked with looking into the matter.
Publishing its latest report on 12 October, the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts noted that the UK defence estate is “vital in supporting military capabilities” but has “failed to evolve to meet the armed forces’ needs”.
“The MoD [Ministry of Defence] is spending about twice as much a year maintaining the defence estate as it does maintaining the UK’s nuclear deterrent, but, as this inquiry has disappointingly revealed, it doesn’t know exactly what it spent GBP4.6 billion [USD6.3 billion] of taxpayers’ money on last year – or what it should be spending it on,” Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, deputy chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, was quoted as saying in a press release accompanying the report. Janes
