Army drones and warships among £500m defence cuts

The defence secretary has announced emergency cuts to the UK military, including the Royal Navy’s two amphibious assault ships, a frigate and 31 helicopters.

- DAVID MADDOX

John Healey has blamed the disputed £22bn black hole left in the finances by the Tories. However, the Conservatives have warned that the cuts have come because Labour refuses to spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence.

Mr Healey told MPs that Labour had “a dire inheritance” from the Tories in defence so needed to scrap six “outdated” defence projects which will save £500m over the next five years. “We have begun to fix the foundations going forward,” he added. “For too long our soldiers, sailors and air staff have been stuck with using outdated equipment.”

The emergency statement caught MPs by surprise yesterday and has left doubts over whether the UK could take back the Falklands if they were invaded again.

The scrapping of HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion leaves the UK without any amphibious assault ships. In addition, the frigate HMS Northumberland is beyond economic repair and will be decommissioned along with two Wave-class tankers.

Mr Healey said that HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion had been “superficially retired” by Tory ministers “but kept on the books at a cost of £9m a year”.

The defence secretary said that the service chiefs had agreed to his “common sense decisions which previous governments had failed to take”. He added: “These will not be the last difficult decisions I will have to take.”