Now that Bernard Gray’s report on defence procurement has been leaked to The Sunday Times, I suppose that it will be published. That will certainly be embarrassing for Bob Ainsworth, the Secretary of State for Defence, and for Gordon Brown. Those parts of the report that were reported were absolutely damning, yet every word of Mr Gray’s criticism seems to be completely justified.

Mr Gray is an experienced businessman, and has been a special adviser to Labour defence ministers; he knows what he’s talking about; his report was originally commissioned by John Hutton, who resigned as Defence Secretary only in June.

It is, therefore, a report by a well-informed insider, competent to make defence judgments.

The Prime Minister, and the current Defence Secretary, hoped to stop the report being published; that, if anything, gives further weight to its criticisms. The Ministry of Defence has a glib explanation for preferring secrecy: “This report is currently in draft format and we are working hard with him on the issues he has identified.” However, even that apology confirms that the MoD itself regards Bernard Gray as a significant authority.

Mr Gray has made a dry comment on this attempt to avoid publication. “The vested interests will not welcome these changes and may seek to undermine them.” He might well have added that vested ministers may seek to protect their own skins.

When one reads the essence of the report, it contains a devastating critique of the management of defence planning and procurement, extending over several ministers and the 11-year period since the last defence review was published in 1998.

In that year, soon after Labour had come to power, people still expected there to be a peace dividend that would follow the end of the Cold War and the break-up of the Soviet Union. They did not expect British troops to be involved in two major wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, with rising casualties. It is the job of defence planners to prepare for unforeseen events; the plans of 1998 have indeed been overtaken, but not replaced by any strategic response to what has actually occurred.

Mr Gray observes that the MoD has “a substantially overheated equipment programme, with too many types of equipment being ordered for too large a range of tasks at too high a specification”. He states that present projects are over budget by £35 billion and will arrive five years later than expected. He asks: “How can it be that it takes 20 years to buy a ship, or aircraft, or tank? Why does it always seem to cost at least twice what was thought? Even worse, at the end of the wait, why does it never quite seem to do what it is supposed to?”

I do not doubt that Mr Gray is speaking the truth, however inconvenient that may be for the Labour Government. There seem to be three collisions in the core debate over defence planning. The first is the collision between the wars started in the Blair-Brown regime and Mr Brown’s refusal as Chancellor to spend money on fighting them. That has already cost solders’ lives in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Soldiers have been killed because their equipment is inadequate or out-of-date. In particular, our Forces have had to rely on too few helicopters and on inadequately protected armoured vehicles, including the Snatch Land Rovers. That was true of the soldiers exposed in moving to and from the Basra Palace three years ago, and it is still true of soldiers patrolling in Helmand province now. Many good soldiers have been killed or injured because Mr Blair as Prime Minister sent them to war, then Mr Brown as Chancellor refused the cash to buy the best equipment.

The second collision is also financial. The Opposition accepts that defence will need more money, but, as Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, has observed: “Labour has created a defence black hole which is not only impacting on current operations in Afghanistan but threatens to provide an ongoing defence crisis for years to come.”

This is jingoism in reverse: “We don’t want to fight but by jingo, if we do, we’re short of ships, and short of men, and short of money too.” An incoming opposition may well cope with the immediate funding crisis, or with the longer-term procurement costs; it will be very hard to cope with both at once.

The third collision is the traditional issue of inter-Service rivalry. We are at present fighting a tough infantry war of mobile patrolling against insurgents. In this war, more and better helicopters and armoured vehicles are the key to rapid response and reduction in casualties. Yet the MoD seems more concerned to find huge funds for two aircraft carriers and a replacement for Trident. This would give priority for expenditure on weapons systems we are unlikely to use rather than the weapon systems we are actually using in combat in Afghanistan.

In 1838 the great Duke of Wellington opposed intervention in Afghanistan that was to lead to the first Afghan War and the appalling catastrophe of the 1842 retreat from Kabul. He warned that: “When the military successes end the political difficulties will begin.” More often than not Britain’s historic losses in Afghanistan have occurred when we were trying to withdraw, not when we were trying to intervene.

There does not seem to be any exit plan for Afghanistan, except that we may stay for 20-40 years. There can, therefore, be no strategic plan based on the Afghan commitment, since there is no coherent strategy for staying or leaving in the Afghan theatre of war. This is not a Government that knows what it wants to do in defence matters. Bob Ainsworth has no idea; Gordon Brown is in a fog of indecision.

This is less than fair to Britain’s brave soldiers and their families. It is also incompetent. We have had to wait far too long for the Government to get a grip on the strategy and supply of the Afghan War.

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