Ministers scrap warships, helicopters, and drones in £500m defence cuts | EUROtoday

The defence secretary has introduced emergency cuts to the UK navy, together with the Royal Navy’s two amphibious assault ships, a frigate and 31 helicopters.

John Healey has blamed the disputed £22bn black gap left within the funds by the Tories. However, the Conservatives have warned that the cuts have come as a result of Labour refuses to spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence.

Mr Healey advised MPs that Labour had “a dire inheritance” from the Tories in defence so wanted to scrap six “outdated” defence tasks which can save £500m over the following 5 years.

“We have begun to fix the foundations going forward,” he added. “For too long our soldiers, sailors and air staff have been stuck with using outdated equipment.”

The emergency assertion caught MPs without warning on Wednesday and has left doubts over whether or not the UK might take again the Falklands in the event that they have been invaded once more.

The scrapping of HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion leaves the UK with none amphibious assault ships. In addition, the frigate HMS Northumberland is past financial restore and can be decommissioned together with two Wave-class tankers.

Mr Healey mentioned that HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion had been “superficially retired” by Tory ministers “but kept on the books at a cost of £9m a year”.

The defence secretary mentioned that the service chiefs had agreed to his “common sense decisions which previous governments had failed to take”. He added: “These will not be the last difficult decisions I will have to take.”

Thirty-one helicopters –14 Chinooks and 17 Pumas – are additionally to be completely grounded. The UK’s substitute helicopter programme continues to be some years away. There have been 294 helicopters within the armed forces final 12 months.

Also going are the Watchkeeper MK1 drones, which value round £5m every, however have been beset by points and can be grounded.

However, Mr Healey did announce new retention funds for armed forces personnel who join further years of service.

He mentioned: “I can announce today that I am introducing, from April, a new £30,000 retention payment for a cohort of tri-service aircraft engineers who sign up for [an] additional three years of service. This will affect and be open to around 5,000 personnel in total.

“And from January, a new £8,000 retention payment for army personnel who served four years, supporting 4,000 personnel each year for three years. So 12,000 troops in total.”

The authorities is at the moment conducting a strategic defence evaluation and have been unable to rule out additional cuts. There have already been considerations that the scale of the military can be lowered to 63,000.

Responding to some extent of order from Tory shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge, Mr Healey refused to substantiate if Storm Shadow missiles provided to Ukraine by Britain have been utilized in Russia.

He advised MPs: “At this point I am not able to go into any further operational details. He added: “We as a nation and government are doubling down on our support for Ukraine.”

Responding to the most important defence cuts, Mr Cartlidge mentioned: “We have heard it all! Labour calling itself the party of defence.”

He added: “They have refused to set a pathway to 2.5 per cent [of GDP on defence spending] and instead of a pathway we have cuts.”

He questioned why the selections have been being made earlier than the strategic defence evaluation has reported. He mentioned: “Labour have made their choices and they own the consequences.”

Lib Dem defence spokesperson Richard Foord identified that the brand new Chinooks are usually not because of are available till 2027 and the medium helicopters to exchange the Pumas unlikely to be prepared till the beginning of the following decade.

He mentioned: “I am not surprised the service chiefs agreed this. It is their job to salute and turn right.”

Former intelligence and safety committee chair Sir Julian Lewis described the scrapping of the amphibious ships as “a black day for the Royal Marines”.

Former defence secretary Sir Gavin Williamson was certainly one of plenty of MPs to press for the previous gear to be supplied to Ukraine to assist in the warfare in opposition to Russia.

Meanwhile, main defence suppose tank the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) mentioned that the cuts underlined how tight the defence funds is.

Rusi’s navy sciences director Matthew Savill mentioned: “These are mostly capabilities that are approaching retirement anyway, have been at low levels of readiness or aren’t worth further refits or investment.

“But the fact that defence either can’t crew them, or is prepared to cut them to make very modest savings over five years in the current international environment is an indication of just how tight resources must be in the MoD right now.

“In particular, the defence review will be under pressure to set out the future role of the Royal Marines, how the navy will bring into service and sustain more escorts, which are the workhorses of the fleet; and the impact upon helicopter capacity and procurement.”