Defence job cuts ‘ endanger security’

LABOUR was accused last night of jeopardising defences by axing 2,000 jobs among military engineers who repair warplanes and tanks.

Angry union bosses warned of strikes and claimed the ‘ mad dash’ to privatise defence jobs was a betrayal.

The latest job losses follow drastic cuts in manpower across the military frontline as the Ministry of Defence struggles to cope with a continuing budget crisis.

Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram announced the losses to the Commons yesterday ‘ with great regret’, claiming they would streamline the way vehicles and aircraft are repaired and maintained.

Much of the work is likely to be diverted to private companies but opposition critics warned that such drastic cuts would weaken Britain’s forces.

The Defence Aviation Repair Agency, the MoD organisation set up last year to maintain warplanes, is to close its fast- jet facility at St Athan, South Wales, with the loss of 500 jobs. In future, fast jets such as Torna- dos and Harriers will be maintained at frontline bases instead of at a central site.

The agency’s helicopter repair sites at Fleetlands, Hampshire, and Almondbank, Scotland, are likely to be sold off. Engine repair workshops at Fleetlands will also close, with another 225 redundancies.

More than 1,200 agency jobs have been cut over the past year from its workforce of 3,000.

Transport and General Workers’ Union national officer Peter Allenson said: ‘This mad dash to the private sector with the defence of the realm will not deliver value for money.’

Under the latest round of defence cuts the RAF is losing one in five of its personnel – down from 52,800 to 41,000 – along with a fifth of its combat jets and several flying stations.

Quentin Letts – Page 18