Government cuts could risk national security - think tank

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Proposed cuts to government departments dealing with illegal migration and organised crime could have serious implications for national security, a think tank has said.

Plans for the Home and Foreign offices to find up to 40% of savings leaves "missing links" in financing, the Royal United Services Institute said.

The "credibility" of government's defence policy was at risk, it added.

A Treasury spokesman said "security comes first".

'Security implications considerable'

In July, Chancellor George Osborne launched his spending review with a call for £20bn of cuts to Whitehall budgets.

Mr Osborne wrote to all departments, including the Foreign Office and Home Office, asking them to model two scenarios setting out how 25% or 40% of real-terms savings could be achieved by 2019-20.

The government is also carrying out its strategic defence and security review (SDSR), which will set out the threats to national security and how the government will respond.

It is due to be published within days of the spending review statement in November.

The government has already pledged to meet Nato's target of spending 2% of national income on defence and to increase annual spending on the Ministry of Defence by 0.5% for the rest of the decade.

But defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) argues that key agencies funded by the budgets of the Foreign Office and Home Office - like the National Crime Agency - should also be protected if the government wants a coherent security strategy.

"Were cuts of this magnitude to be made, the implications for national security could be considerable," Rusi's report said.

It added: "No comparable protection has been extended to the departments and agencies responsible for tackling the security challenges posed by organised crime and illegal migration, or in support of UK international diplomacy."

Additional spending totalling £400m by 2019-20 would be needed to protect these areas, Rusi said.

The BBC's defence correspondent, Jonathan Beale, said that previously challenges posed by migration had not featured highly in the government's National Security Strategy.

Rusi research director Professor Malcolm Chalmers said the government had made commitments that the UK was "willing to devote the resources necessary to remain a serious power on the international stage, backing up its ambitions with real increases in funding for both defence and development".

But he added: "If the SDSR were to be accompanied by steep reductions in spending on the diplomatic network, or by significant cuts in the resources available for combating organised crime and illegal migration, it could risk undermining the wider coherence and credibility of the review.

"The government would be open to the criticism that it was prepared to devote substantial resources to meeting international norms for defence and aid spending, while cutting spending in areas more directly related to national security, foreign policy and prosperity objectives."

'Security comes first'

An HM Treasury spokesman said: "The government is clear that security comes first - the economic security of a country that lives within its means and the national security of a Britain that defends itself and its values.

"That is why the chancellor committed additional resources in the summer Budget to the defence and security of the realm, committing to meet the Nato pledge to spend 2% of our national income on defence not just this year, but every year of this decade."