Lib Dem Plan: A Secure Defence in the 21st Century

The Armed Forces play a vital role in the defence of the nation: government should have a deep sense of duty to properly support service personnel and veterans. Neither the Conservatives nor Labour have shown a commitment to this: the Conservative government in particular has spread chronic low morale, misspent money on vanity projects and failed to recruit and retain people with the skills needed for 21st century warfare.

Liberal Democrats are the only party who
understand the new challenges faced by the Armed Forces and who are committed to properly supporting them.

We will:
- Commit to the principle of collective self-defence as laid out in the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) and spending two per cent of GDP on defence in line with NATO recommendations: as the economy grows after we have stopped Brexit, this will mean an extra £3 billion over the parliament.

- Strengthen our armed services and address critical skills shortages by recruiting STEM graduates to be armed forces engineers, providing 'golden handshakes' of up to £10,000.

- Promote an international treaty on the principles and limits of the use of technology in modern warfare.

- Recognise the expansion of warfare into the cybersphere by investing in our security and intelligence services and acting to counter cyberattacks.

- Maintain a minimum nuclear deterrent, while pursuing multilateral nuclear
disarmament: continuing with the Dreadnought programme, the submarinebased replacement for Vanguard, but procuring three boats and moving to a
medium-readiness responsive posture and maintaining the deterrent through measures such as unpredictable and irregular patrolling patterns.

- Support the Armed Forces Covenant and ongoing work to support veterans' mental health.

- Improve the quality of housing for service personnel by bringing the Ministry of Defence into line with other landlords, giving tenants the same legal rights to
repair and maintenance as private tenants.