British army told to stop non-essential training exercises to save money - BBC News BBC Homepage Skip to content Accessibility Help Your account Home News Sport Earth Reel Worklife Travel Culture Future Music TV Weather Sounds More menu More menu Search BBC Home News Sport Earth Reel Worklife Travel Culture Future Music TV Weather Sounds Close menu BBC News Menu Home Climate World UK Business Tech Science Entertainment & Arts Health In Pictures More BBC Verify Newsbeat Politics Parliaments Brexit British army told to stop non-essential training exercises to save money Image source, Getty Images By Jonathan Beale , Defence correspondent  and  André Rhoden-Paul Published 7 hours ago The Army has been told to stop "non-essential" training exercises to save money, according to a defence source. It will continue to train soldiers preparing to be deployed or on deployments - such as units sent to Estonia, the Falklands or Cyprus. But units back in the UK and who are not preparing for a specific deployment have been told to cut back on collective training exercises due to financial pressures. It comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham faces pressure to increase spending on defence. The government is increasing defence spending to 2.5% of national income by next year, but is under growing pressure to reach a target of 3% by the end of the decade. A defence source said the plans mean not doing what he called "nice to have training" - like large live fire exercises and rehearsing platoon attacks in UK training areas like Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire and Sennybridge in Wales. It is understood planned exercises that were due to take place that are now cancelled include one involving the Royal Tank Regiment conducting live fire drills in Wales and a separate exercise involving tanks and Apache helicopters. This was not the choice of the army, the source said. The pause is expected to continue for most of this year. Other specific training aimed at modernising the Army – such