Lay-offs to give boost to defence capability in second half of decade

London: Liam Fox, the defence secretary, said Britain's defence capability would grow in the second half of this decade as sweeping redundancies were announced that would leave almost 2,000 service personnel without jobs.

Fox's assurances came as the Ministry of Defence was poised to lay off 920 soldiers and another 930 RAF personnel — 40 per cent of which through compulsory redundancies. This forms part of the armed services' drive to cut 22,000 military staff over the next four years,

"The tough measures we have taken will bring the budget largely into balance for the first time in a generation," Fox said yesterday.

"The extra money we have allocated for the equipment budget from 2015 will allow our defence capability to grow in the second half of the decade."

The defence secretary added that responsibility for the redundancies lay with the "incompetence of the last Labour government" who had left the defence budget with a £38 billion deficit. The Ministry of Defence already confirmed last month that it would make 7,000 cuts to its civilian staff in addition to the 25,000 that were set to be scrapped under the Strategic Defence and Security Review published in October.

However, Labour weighed in to criticise "eye-watering" lay-offs, in which 150 Gurkhas are expected to be told to quit alongside 500 RAF personnel in the swath of compulsory redundancies announced yesterday.

Jim Murphy, shadow defence secretary, told the BBC that the cuts came as a consequence of "a deficit-reduction plan that goes too far".

"The problem, as everyone knows, is that the deficit is temporary, it will be gone in the future," he said. "But the cuts in military capability that the government is announcing, are permanent ... you can reduce the deficit more carefully."

He said that while Labour would have made defence cuts, they would not have been so deep. "Of course, there has to be some savings, we all know that, but the sheer scale and depth of these redundancies I think is pretty eye-watering," Murphy said.

Defence minister Nick Harvey backed Fox's actions with the argument that national security required that the UK has a sound economy.

— Financial Times