By UK Government News on Tuesday, June 18th, 2013
UK Army Chief Warns Against Further Cuts
The head of the military has warned that any gap between military resources and planned capabilities brought on by spending cuts “could become quite dangerous, quite quickly”. Chief of the overall Staff General Sir Peter Wall said imposing further efficiencies while the impact of previous deep spending cuts at the defense force were still being absorbed could be “very disruptive”.
His comments came with the Ministry of Defence stressed to deliver its share of the £11.5 billion spending cuts across Government demanded by Chancellor George Osborne in his spending review. Defence has some protection inside the 2015/16 review, to be unveiled on June 26, with a guaranteed 1% increase in equipment budgets from 2015, but Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has still been asked to seek out a 5% cut in other spending. However, senior MoD sources claimed a cope with the Treasury was now close that might not involve any more reduction in military numbers or capability.
Sir Peter was interviewed as portion of the Britain’s Last War documentary broadcast on Sky News last night. Presenter Jeff Randall asked him: “The forthcoming spending review seems bound to bring further cuts to the defence budget, and the arms budget, leaving a substantial gap between planned capabilities and available resources. How dangerous is that gap?”
He replied: “I think it could possibly become quite dangerous, quite quickly.” He told the programme: “We have to the purpose in quite a lot of parts in our installation where we can’t go any longer without seriously damaging our professional competence and our probabilities of success within the battlefields of the longer term. “It will be a brave claim to assert an organisation can never make more efficiencies but we do need the time to let our new structures bed in, for those efficiencies to get delivered. “Imposing more on us now, before the last round of efficiencies have really materialised properly in a balanced way, could be very disruptive.”
David Cameron has hit back over the fears, insisting that Britain’s forces are one of the best-funded on the planet. The Prime Minister said “difficult decisions” are being taken under the Coalition’s austerity programme and warned that no department is immune from making savings.
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