'Transformation' of armed services sees 20,000 posts cut

The MoD's radical "transformation" of the armed services will mean fewer ships, fewer battalions, fewer aircraft and around 10,000 less military personnel, it has emerged today.

Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon presented the Defence Command Paper, 'Delivering Security in a Changing World: Future Capabilities', before Parliament today – a plan which envisages the armed services divest itself of 20,000 civilian and military posts by 2008.

Mr Hoon's paper stated that, with the end of the Cold War and emergence of global terrorism, Britain's forces needed to be transformed to meet the new threats. There was now less need for anti-submarine warfare capability in submarines, frigates and maritime patrol aircraft. Also, the reduced threat from air attack, better fighter aircraft and the improvements in precision weaponry meant that there should be fewer aircraft and less ground-based air defence.

Through the changes outlined today, the MoD intends Britain's forces to be able to carry out amphibious and aircraft carrier attacks, and be able to land lighter, more manoeuvrable infantry anywhere in the world quicker and more effectively.

Of the three armed services, the RAF will bear the brunt of the cuts. The RAF’s manpower will be cut from 48,500 to around 41,000, and it will also downsize its airbases towards fewer larger and better-equipped main bases.

The air arm's entire Jaguar ground attack aircraft fleet will be retired two years early in 2007 and – with the end of the Cold War and the diminishing threat from hostile submarines – the number of Nimrods will be cut from 21 to 16.

The army will see its full manpower target drop from 108,500, to 102,000 after normalization in Northern Ireland. However, the impact of the cuts will not be quite so acute as the army's current (under-staffed) compliment stands at around 103,500.

However, Britain's top soldier, General Sir Mike Jackson, has warned that it is "unlikely that we will be able to avoid a redundancy programme" – but it should not involve more than a few hundred personnel.

There will be a restructuring of the army's infantry structure, which will see some famous regiments amalgamated into larger regimental divisions. For example, the Scottish Division will upgrade from its present six single-battalion regiments into a new organisation of one or two large regiments. In England, the King’s and Prince of Wales’s Divisions will restructure from their present 13 single-battalion regiments into a new organisation of one or two large regiments per division.

The TA Infantry will also integrate into the future large regiments. The Gurkha regiment is unaffected by the cuts.

The Royal Navy ’s manpower will fall from some 37,500 to around 36,000, and it will pay off 12 ships over the next two years – leaving a total of eight Type-45 destroyers.

In a personal message to the military personnel, the Chief Of Defence Staff, General Sir Michael Walker, said that the plans had presented some "difficult choices" but would "enhance our overall defence capability".

Sir Michael Walker said that service chiefs were confident that the proposals would create a "speedily deployable, agile, joint and integrated technically ambitious defence capability".

He added: "Our future capability lies in the sustainable combination of well-trained and led men and women, equipped with modern battle winning kit.

"Our international standing as a defence force remains undiminished and we offer genuine military utility. The UK’s forward-looking, sustainable, ‘premier league’ defence capability lies at the heart of the insurance policy that serves this nation’s domestic and international needs."

The Lib Dems were critical of today's announcement, saying that the overstretched armed forces were "being asked to do more with less".

Lib Dem Shadow Defence Secretary, Paul Keetch, said: "Flexibility in the armed forces is welcome, but an over-stretched service cannot be flexible. The changes in posture are welcome, but reducing troop numbers is foolhardy.

"Iraq has shown that winning the peace needs more troops on the ground than winning the war.

"These changes assume no new commitments. A bit of spare capacity would have been a good insurance policy."

(gmcg)