Defence experts given 300 words to state their case in ministers’ Armed Forces review

EXPERTS have accused the Government of insulting them by limiting their contributions to a defence review to just a few hundred words.

The Ministry of Defence is calling for public consultation on this summer’s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), but is cutting the space to respond to an online form to only 1,500 characters — roughly equivalent to between 200 and 300 words.

The Bow Group, a Conservative think thank, warned earlier this month that the review risked being superficial and nothing more than “a glossy PR document”, unless given more time to analyse the threats Britain faces.

The limit was last night labelled “disgusting” by one defence lobby group, while Labour said Government promises to consult widely were a sham.

DefenceSynergia, a lobby group including several former senior officers and academics, said the approach was “quite frankly, an insult”. It added that it was “simply disingenuous” to suggest that there was a genuine attempt to “open up SDSR 2015 to a broad base of analytical thinking”.

Many defence experts have already called for a wide-ranging review because the last one in 2010 focused only on cost cutting, and security threats around the world have since changed dramatically.

Vernon Coaker, the shadow defence secretary, said the Government’s “entire approach to the SDSR is wrong”.

He said: “The 2010 SDSR did not survive contact with reality and all the signs are that the Government will repeat the mistakes they made five years ago, leading to a further decline in Britain’s global influence.”

Meanwhile, it emerged that the Royal Navy was expected to use the SDSR to call for 2,500 more sailors. Naval chiefs will argue that the service will be unable to man the vast new Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers without a large increase in manpower.