Defence review danger | City & Business | Finance | Express.co.uk

Last week the all-party defence select committee warned the review, designed to make cost savings at the cash-strapped Ministry of Defence, was being rushed.

I agree. There’s a real danger that the SDSR could be a hasty and ill-thought out exercise constrained by cost and with scant regard for a potentially dangerous future.

By rushing through the proposals ministers are also showing little regard for British industry and skills. The UK’s future skills base will hang on which procurement programmes stay and

which go.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox is proposing the UK sticks with its plan to build two new aircraft carriers at a cost of more than £5 billion.

But Chancellor George Osborne is leading the charge for even deeper cuts. Army chiefs want Fox to slash high-tech platforms for the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.

The SDSR amounts to one of the most important decisions on military policy since the end of the Cold War. It is the foundation of our presence on the world stage for decades to come. It

should not be rushed, nor the defence budget slashed to the bone, otherwise our troops will suffer and another leading British industry will be brought to its knees.

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