Margaret Hodge, the committee’s chair, said that MoD “has gone ahead with cuts to its military and civilian workforce without a proper understanding of what skills it will need in the future.
“We recognise the MoD must make tough financial decisions… but we are concerned these cuts have been determined by the need to cut costs in the short term, rather than by considering the MoD’s strategic objectives in the long term and the skills it will need to deliver them.”
Peter Luff, minister for defence equipment, support and technology, said: “We had to make tough decisions to get our finances back into balance and this included a plan to reduce the civil service by 32,000 by 2020 to ensure we can deliver more resources to the front line.”