Labour's secret plans to slash the Navy By Melissa Kite and Patrick Hennessy
Last Updated: 1:59am BST 01/10/2007
Ministers have drawn up confidential proposals to slash the number of ships in the Royal Navy, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.
The expected reductions follow a fierce row between Service chiefs and the Treasury over defence spending.
The total number of ships could be cut from 103 to just 50 The Ministry of Defence has produced a plan to decommission five warships from next April,
which would reduce the Navy's capability to the level where it could carry out only "one small-scale operation".Separate documentation from inside the department suggests that the total number of ships in the Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary could fall from the present level of 103 to 76 in 2017 and only 50 in 2027 — a reduction of more than half.The information has been supplied in an email from a whistleblowing official inside the MoD, who has given details of a row between senior officials in the department and Andy Burnham, the Treasury Chief Secretary, over the allocation of money to the MoD over the next three years.
The deal, sealed under the Comprehensive Spending Review and announced in July, gave the MoD an annual increase of 1.5 per cent above inflation for the years 2008-11.
advertisementHowever, it also contained a commitment to buy two 65,000-ton aircraft carriers, at a cost of £4 billion — meaning savings had to be found elsewhere if the MoD were to meet its "operational commitments."
The email reads:
"The Chief Sec directed that no further money from the CSR would be allocated to Defence and to maintain force levels the Dept must find the savings/cuts."For the RN [Royal Navy], the poor CSR deal and the commitment to 2 carriers is such that a proposal
for the immediate decommissioning of 5 ships (frigates and destroyers) from April next year has been considered.
"This would reduce the RN's capabilities to just one small scale operation and that is it."
Sources said that under the plan the Navy, once the pride of the Armed Forces, would be unable to provide anything like the 1982 Falklands task force.
In what is likely to be a "worst-case" scenario, with no further commissioning of ships, total numbers of what the MoD terms "platforms" is slated to fall steadily from 103 to 50 within 20 years.
The number of submarines would be cut from 13 to 11 in 2007-08 while there would be two aircraft carriers rather than the present three. Frigates would be cut from 17 to nine, while the number of destroyers would go up, from six to eight, but only because more have already been commissioned.
There would be no minesweepers or patrol ships, while the number of landing vessels would be cut from eight to six.
The disclosures are likely to embarrass Gordon Brown, who has long been viewed with some suspicion within the Services. During his time as chancellor he was thought to regard the MoD as one of the most "financially wasteful" of all Whitehall departments. However, as Prime Minister he has been keen to be seen as a strong supporter of the Armed Forces.
Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said: "Any reduction in our forces' size at present would be insane, given our unsafe world and the level of our current deployments. No wonder there are suggestions Gordon Brown is considering a complete withdrawal from Iraq. His own cuts to our Armed Forces may leave him with no option."
Colonel Tim Collins, a former Iraq war commander, said: "The Armed Forces are once more facing the squeeze and once again it looks like the Royal Navy will bear the brunt.
"There are no votes in defence, as was reflected in last week's conference speech by the Prime Minister in which Afghanistan and Iraq, Labour's wars, were mentioned only once each."
An MoD spokesman said last night: "No decisions have been taken to make changes to force structures. As ever, we continually review the defence programme.
"The CSR settlement sees the continuation of the longest period of sustained real-terms growth in planned defence spending since the 1980s."
. Quanto aos LSD classe Bay, poderiam ser substituidos na MN por navios civis fretados em caso de emergência.
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