Cuts have left gaps in Forces, admits minister

Defence cuts have left "gaps" in Britain's military capability that will last for 10 years, Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey admitted today.

The decision to axe major pieces of kit along with thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen has caused shortfalls in capacity that will run until 2020, Mr Harvey said.

He insisted the UK's armed forces would be able to cope with future challenges and said the cuts were unavoidable as part of attempts to balance the books - but Labour said his admission was "shocking".

Mr Harvey's comments came after a damning report from MPs into last year's Strategic Defence and Security Review.

The Commons defence committee warned the defence review risked leaving the armed forces unable to deliver what is asked of them after 2015.

They also rejected David Cameron's assurance that Britain retains a "full spectrum" defence capability and said that politicians will have "failed" the military without a real-terms spending increase from 2015 onwards.

Mr Harvey said the "most conspicuous" gap would be the lack of an aircraft carrier for the next 10 years following the scrapping of Ark Royal.

"The defence review defined what we want our forces to look like by 2020 which is the 10-year timeframe that we normally plan our defences on and the Prime Minister has said that by 2020 we will have recreated a full spectrum of capability," he told Sky News.

"But he and I and everybody else acknowledges that between now and then there will along the way be some capability gaps."

The Lib-Dem minister said a 7.5 per cent cut to the defence budget to deal with a £38 billion black hole meant some "pain" was inevitable, adding: "Some of the decisions we took, we regret... We wouldn't have chosen to have gone without carrier strike for 10 years but that was just something that we had to do."

Mr Harvey also pointed to a pledge of £3 billion in extra funding for defence equipment as he insisted the armed forces were not "overstretched" by operations in Afghanistan and Libya.

But he went on: "I do readily acknowledge that we are working people and kit very hard."

Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said the SDSR had left Britain in an "unsustainable position", adding: "For a defence minister to admit there will be defence capability gaps is as shocking as it is serious."