Front-line soldiers may return home to sack from September

Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday defended the scale of the job losses – which potentially include some troops now on the front line in Afghanistan – but Labour attacked both the handling and scale of cuts being implemented.

The Prime Minister conceded that axing around 5,000 personnel from the army, 3,300 from the Navy and 2,700 from the RAF would be “difficult” for those affected but insisted the losses were necessary to “modernise and update” Britain’s forces for future challenges.

Labour criticised the Government for announcing details of the cuts at the same time Mr Cameron has been suggesting the RAF could help to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya.

Last autumn’s Strategic Defence and Security Review set out plans for reducing the size of the armed forces by 17,000 in total.

Some of that number will be met by not replacing people who were retiring or leaving for other reasons. But defence officials disclosed that 11,000 personnel still face being redundant on a compulsory or voluntary basis.

Commodore Jonathan Woodcock said the first tranche would be notified whether they were being made redundant in September.

No-one serving in Afghanistan at that time will be eligible to lose their jobs, but virtually all personnel currently serving in the country could be included, he said.

In the wake of media leaks that trainee pilots were being laid off, and the accidental sacking of soldiers serving in Afghanistan by email, Defence Secretary Liam Fox also promised that reductions would be handled with “sensitivity and care”.

No-one who is deployed on operations, preparing to deploy on operations, or recently returned from operations will be considered for redundancy unless they volunteer. Those recovering from injury will also be exempt.

However, Commodore Woodcock confirmed that personnel currently serving in Afghanistan would be eligible, as almost all will have completed their tour by September.

The MoD also announced that two Tornado squadrons, 14 and XIII, were being disbanded. Personnel will be redistributed and considered for redundancy on the same terms as others.

Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy said: “This is incredible. At the same time as planning a no-fly zone over Libya the Tory-led Government chooses today of all days to sack RAF personnel. The pilots will be stunned and the country will be confused. These are the very same people who would help enforce no-fly zones. The Government is losing its way on defence and should reopen its Defence Review.”

He added: “You can’t stop all redundancies in all the Armed Forces but this has been handled in a Keystone Cops, amateurish way, with warrant officers being sacked by email and pilots learning of their fate through the media rather than through the established processes.”

But Mr Cameron laid the blame on mismanagement by the former Labour government.

“These were incredibly difficult decisions, but we had an inheritance of a defence budget that was overspent by £38bn and where decisions had been put off and put off and we were not modernising and updating our armed forces so they were able to cope with the modern challenges they were going to have to meet.

“At the end of this process we will still have probably the fourth largest defence budget in the world.”

TRAINEE PILOTS LOSING CHANCE TO FLY

THE RAF was the first service to give details of its redundancy programme while the army and navy will spell out their approach over the coming weeks.

Some 1,020 RAF personnel will go in the first tranche, including up to 170 trainee pilots – but no qualified pilots.

Up to 100 from the Weapons System Officers Branch and the same number from the Weapons System Operator Trade are under threat, along with 529 “ground tradesmen”.

A further 121 officers up to the rank of Air Commodore could go, and numbers of top brass will be reduced – with those departures handled outside the normal redundancy scheme.

All the forces will seek volunteers for redundancy over the next six weeks, although these applications could be refused and other individuals ejected instead in order to retain skills and operational effectiveness.

After notification in September, volunteers will serve six months’ notice and non-volunteers a year.

They will also be entitled to tax-free redundancy and re-settlement pay-offs.

The reductions are due to be fully achieved by April 2015.