Terrorists! Attack Britain! Labour Doesnt Care
 

Five RAF bases to close in £1bn cuts
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 02/04/2004)


The Ministry of Defence is planning the biggest cuts in Armed Forces' equipment for decades as part of attempts to save more than £1 billion from the defence budget.

Five RAF bases are to go, with the scrapping of all the RAF's 62 ground-attack Jaguars, all its 79 ground-attack GR7 Harriers and all its 39 Puma helicopters.

The Royal Navy will lose the two carriers Illustrious and Invincible, at least two frigates and its 88 Sea King helicopters, and close four naval storage bases.

The Army will have to close a number of camps on the Salisbury Plain training area and axe at least 50 Challenger 2 tanks, 50 Warrior armoured personnel carriers and all 118 of its Gazelle helicopters.
The cuts are so wide-reaching that ministers are planning to hold back the announcement of some until after a general election.

At least three Scottish infantry battalions are in danger of being amalgamated, a move that could spark a widespread defection of Labour voters north of the border to the Nationalists.

But the Government believes the suggestion by Oliver Letwin, shadow chancellor, that the Conservatives would cut the defence budget, now denied by the Tories, makes it impossible for them to challenge any cuts.

The Royal Scots and the Black Watch, two of the most famous Scottish regiments but both with recruiting problems, are most likely to go.

The overall cuts will lead to 2,000 officers being made redundant across all three services as well as a number of senior NCOs. The large-scale disposals come after the Treasury won its battle with the MoD over cash shortages caused by the adoption of a new accounting system, the cost of expensive new programmes and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Under the new Resource Account Budgeting system it costs government departments more money to keep open large numbers of bases.

Working groups within the MoD were told to find ways to save money from current equipment to protect projects such as the Navy's two new carriers and the RAF's Eurofighter/Typhoon aircraft.

The RAF bases to close include Coltishall in Norfolk, which houses all the RAF's Jaguar ground-attack aircraft, Wittering in Cambridgeshire, home of Joint Force Harrier, and Benson in Oxfordshire.

Military commanders are furious at the long list.

Nicholas Soames, shadow defence secretary, accused the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, of planning "to wreak havoc on the Forces".

ah, so this is how they pay for a war.

no this is how they intend to pay people 30 quid a week to stay in school.

absolutely useless socialist scum

Isn't this also the way they pay for your holidays on Lanzarote? :roll: :twisted:

no my dear. my alcohol consumption and holidays are paid for due to a student loan which must be paid back with interest.

our lovely socialist government are wanting to pay people 30 quid a week to stay in school for no other reason than keepign unemployment figures and gyro queues down.

when you leave school. reality hits home pretty fast when there's no jobs and you either do meanial shit work or get back into proper education. all this is going to do is make this happen a couple of years later.

We should shut the gates into England and start sending the illigal imgrants back home that way we will have alot more money to spend on things like the RAF, schools and Hospitals.

yeeh I dont see any english people keeping 6ft high fertiliser bombs in their back garden , like the ones just found in London !!!!!!!!!!

Dawn

Is there an official link to this site? it sounds bollocks. Thats some serious hardware thats being 'cut'. Would have thot id seen this all over the news.
*reads over again* yup, its bollox!



ktf
andi

er mate, it aint bollocks..you obviously dont keep up to date in the defence world...
its on the telegraph site for a start..







Forces get ready to fight MoD cutbacks
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 02/04/2004)


Defence chiefs are furious over a package of cuts proposed by MoD teams set up to find ways of solving a £1.2 billion budget shortfall that threatens to force cutbacks in operations abroad.

The MoD teams, known as "work strands", are not due to report until next month, but defence chiefs are certain to try to block some of the more controversial moves.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, Chief of Air Staff, in particular is likely to argue strongly against the loss of the GR7 Harriers.

The aircraft are due to be upgraded and scrapping them would also mean a loss of experience in short take-off and landing that would hamper the introduction of the Joint Strike Fighters (JSF) that are due to replace them.

Admiral Sir Alan West, First Sea Lord, is bound to try to fight the loss of two aircraft carriers since doing without them until the introduction of the Royal Navy's two new large carriers will raise questions over why these are needed at all.

One of the civil servants working on the plans defended the decision to axe the carriers, saying that they would not be needed if there were no Harrier aircraft to fly off them. "The JSF will operate from the future carriers, so there is no longer a requirement to maintain three carriers now," he said.

"At the same time the new Merlin helicopter is now fully in service with the RAF and Navy so we can withdraw the Puma and Sea Kings. They are very old, but will no doubt be snapped up by a foreign government as they still have a lot of life in them.

"The Jaguar is simply past its sell by date for the UK military requirement but we know that these aircraft are very attractive to countries such as Oman and Jordan, there won't be a problem selling them or a lot of the other kit." But one senior officer said it was ridiculous to be considering such cuts when the armed forces were so widely deployed abroad. "Politicians will claim that more money is being spent and that kit being withdrawn is simply prudent housekeeping," he said.

"But this is the biggest catalogue of cuts to the military for decades at a time when we are deploying troops and resources to more operations.

"We are desperate for helicopters and should keep the Puma and Sea King fleet alive on operations to support ground forces."

The Conservatives added their concern at what they described as "a dangerous loss of capability across a whole range of operational areas when the world was more dangerous and uncertain than it has been since the end of the last war."

Nicholas Soames, Shadow Defence Secretary, demanded the Government made clear what its plans were. He said: "Mr Hoon must come clean, as must the Chancellor, if he is to wreak such havoc on the Armed Forces."

The defence budget has been in crisis for months, in part because of problems caused by a new Treasury-imposed accounting system, the high cost of new equipment programmes and short-term shortfalls caused by the cost of the war in Iraq.

Mr Hoon wrote to the Prime Minister earlier this month warning him there would have to be cuts of £1.2 billion over the coming year and that if the Treasury did not provide more funds operations would suffer.

But the move backfired dramatically. Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, promised in his budget statement that he would increase the defence budget in real terms this year. But officials say that this is an old increase announced two years ago.

Yeah did you see the front page of the sun with that "man" burning the flag? he should be kicked out straight away !!! if they dont like it here then why stay?