MoD 'to cut another 3,000 jobs'

Thousands more civilian jobs are to be axed in the Ministry of Defence after a miscalculation on staffing cuts, according to union leaders.

Prospect warned that the MoD was "heading for the cliff edge" over cuts after being told that another 3,000 posts would be axed on top of 25,000 previously announced losses.

The union warned that the job cuts were being "rushed through" and "mismanaged" under plans to save money.

National officer Steve Jary said: "MoD is driving off a cliff, looking over its shoulder at a pack baying for civil service blood. Our members have had enough. Morale could not be lower.

"It is cutting the very people it needs to maintain its role as an intelligent customer and to provide support to our hard-pressed armed forces. It just doesn't make sense. The armed forces needs both the skills and specialisms of those in the civil service coupled with the military capacity provided by our soldiers."

Civilian job cuts by the Ministry of Defence will total
28,000 - three thousand more than originally announced, say unions

The recent strategic defence and security review (SDSR) included plans to cut 25,000 civilian jobs from the MoD before 2015, but union officials said that figure was now 28,000.

The job losses are hitting admin staff as well as engineers and maintenance workers and are three times as severe as cuts to the military, said Prospect. By 2015 there will be 55,000 civilian staff in the MoD, compared with 118,000 in 1997, said the union.

In a recent survey of Prospect members, four out of five said they would leave if they could afford to, which the union said was the direct result of their "vilification" over recent years.

A MoD spokesman said: "Each year, we review our plans to take account of changes over the previous 12 months and to ensure that we have the right equipment and manning levels to meet the future needs of our armed forces as agreed in the strategic defence and security review.

"Final decisions have yet to be taken but this annual process rightly considers the status of all our key programmes to ensure the continued coherence and balance of the whole programme."


©Press Association

IDS slams bishops on welfare reform

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has hit out at bishops trying to block his welfare reforms, accusing them of ignoring the concerns of ordinary people.

Mr Duncan Smith said the Church of England bishops, who are threatening to derail his planned £26,000 benefit cap, should think more of low-income families who try to do "the right thing".

In an interview with The Sunday Times, he acknowledged that his plans to limit the total payments any household can receive could face defeat in the House of Lords on Monday.

He urged the bishops, who are leading the opposition in the upper chamber, to rethink their objections, insisting they were not doing the poor any favours.

"The question I'd ask these bishops is, over all these years, why have they sat back and watched people being placed in houses they cannot afford? It's not a kindness," he said.

"I would like to see their concerns about ordinary people, who are working hard, paying their tax and commuting long hours, who don't have as much money as they would otherwise because they're paying tax for all of this. Where is the bishops' concern for them?

Iain Duncan Smith urged the bishops to think more of
low-income families who are 'doing the right thing'

"I would like to see a more balanced response from the bishops.

"It's all very well for the bishops to express a political opinion, but I would love them to ask about the poor people on low incomes who are working hard, whose families share rooms, who are doing the right thing."

With Liberal Democrat peers expected to vote against the plan in the Lords, Mr Duncan Smith acknowledged the result could come down to the independent "crossbenchers", including the bishops.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown said later that he favoured a benefit cap but said the welfare revamp was currently "completely unacceptable

©Press Association

LABOUR DISMISSES PARTY SPLIT CLAIMS

Labour dismissed allegations of a split over spending plans today, after senior shadow cabinet minister Jim Murphy said the party needed to show "credibility" by explaining where it would make cuts.

The shadow defence secretary said he accepted £5 billion-worth of the Government's military cuts and acknowledged that Labour would have to make spending reductions if it won power.

Jim Murphy - Labour needs to be "credible"

Tories claimed that his comments, in an interview with The Guardian, amounted to an attack on Labour leader Ed Miliband and shadow chancellor Ed Balls, who have been arguing for a slower rate of reduction in Government spending.

However a source close to Mr Murphy dismissed the claim as "mischief-making", pointing out that Mr Balls himself used a pre-Christmas interview to state explicitly that "there have got to be cuts" and to say that Labour needs to address "public scepticism" about its willingness to take tough decisions on spending.

Mr Murphy was spelling out how that approach applied to defence, said the source.

The shadow defence secretary's remarks come ahead of the launch next month of a Labour review of Britain's defence needs, which is expected to be critical of the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).

Mr Murphy told The Guardian: "It is important to be both credible and popular when it comes to defence investment and the economics of defence.

"There is a difference between populism and popularity. Credibility is the bridge away from populism and towards popularity. It is difficult to sustain popularity without genuine credibility.

"At a time on defence when the Government is neither credible nor popular it is compulsory that Labour is both."

Among the cuts accepted by Mr Murphy were the scrapping of the Nimrod MRA4 surveillance aircraft, saving £2 billion; £900 million of efficiencies in the Trident renewal programme; a £350 million rationalisation of the defence estate; cuts of £205 million in civilian allowances; and reductions in tank regiments, saving £35 million.

He said that Labour will also accept the withdrawal of VC-10 transporter and tanker aircraft in 2013 and C-130J Hercules heavy-lift planes from 2022, indicating that the total cuts figure could rise above £5 billion.

"This is a thorough, forensic package which strengthens defence economic credibility and deals comprehensively with the idea that we oppose all cuts," said Mr Murphy.

"The truth is the Labour Party would have to make cuts if we were in power."

However he made clear he continued to oppose key elements of the SDSR, arguing for the replacement of Nimrod's capability and the retention of warplanes able to operate from aircraft carriers.

"The idea that you cannot deploy an aircraft carrier with aeroplanes on it for a decade - whatever way you do the sums, it doesn't add up," he said.

Treasuty Secretary, Chloe Smith say Mr Murphy's comments  were  an "extraordinary attack" on Mr Miliband and Me Balls

Treasury minister Chloe Smith said that the comments by the prominent Blairite - who was joint campaign manager for David Miliband's 2010 leadership campaign - amounted to an "extraordinary attack" on Ed Miliband and Ed Balls.

They followed the warning earlier this week from Labour peer Lord Glasman that the party appears to have "no strategy, no narrative and little energy" under Mr Miliband's leadership, she said.

"After a series of attacks on his weak leadership, this is the latest blow to Ed Miliband as even his own shadow cabinet are losing confidence in Labour's economic policy," said Ms Smith.

"Until Labour say what spending they would cut to clear up their mess, rather than calling for more spending, more borrowing and more debt, they will never be trusted with our economy again."