Hoon appeals to No10 over Brown's defence cut demands

The Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon has called for the Prime Minister's intervention to halt Treasury demands for £1.2 billion in cuts to be made in defence spending, according to a report in today's Times newspaper.

In a letter sent to Tony Blair yesterday, Mr Hoon has warned that cuts on such a massive scale would jeopardise the military's "current and future" operational commitments.

The newspaper quotes a MoD source who claims that around "a thousand cuts" in the budget would have to be made in order to meet Gordon Brown's demands. The chief of the defence staff, General Sir Michael Walker, is also understood to have voiced his "profound unhappiness" over purse tightening measures.

On the slate for cuts and reductions are: the Royal Marines' winter exercise in Norway; the RAF's fast-jet training; flight time for pilots; and deployments of warships.

However, cost-cutting will not mean a reduction in the manpower of the armed forces. In an interview with the British Forces Broadcasting Service on December 16, the Prime Minister said: "I don't think we will be cutting personnel, on the contrary, we have still got a requirement for people to come into the Armed Forces."

He added: "… it is very likely we will be involved in all sorts of different operations with other forces around the world, and obviously things like strategic lift capability, different types of weapons and technology, these are things that we need to be spending money on, but it shouldn't be at the expense of the personnel, on the contrary obviously you need the personnel to work them."

Treasury officials are reported to be mystified by the cuts claims, saying that the 2002 spending review represented the biggest increase to the MoD's budget in 20 years. Downing Street has said that Britain's armed forces will always be as fully equipped and best trained to deal with whatever task is asked of them.

(gmcg)