TNAG-0540-FCO40-635-Strength-of-garrison-in-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 184

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MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE EXPENDITURE COMMITTEE

11 February, 1975.] Mr. A. P. HoCKADAY, C.B., C.M.G.,

[Continue..

Rear Admiral A. S. MORTON, Mr. T. CULLEN, Mr. D. M. EVANS, Mr. G. C. B. DODDS, Mr. A. R. M. JAFFRAY, Mr. J. D. BRYARS and Mr. T. C. G. JAMES, C.M.G.

1 per cent. in GNP allocated to defence expenditure is, in volume terms, a more substantial cut than would appear, because in order to get the same volume you would have to have an increasing share of GNP allocated for defence?

This is perfectly true. As I say, we have allowed for this in the calculations we have done.

Chairman.

220. The Secretary of State made his statement on the 3rd December and the issue of the White Paper we understand will be next month. You have issued various figures of what the reductions will be each year. Have these been started? Are you in any position to say they are so far up-to-date, because our experience in the previous administration was that it did not seem as though they were carried out to the degree that was expected? (Mr. Hockaday.) It is the case that the figures that we have now arrived at and which have replaced the LTC 1974 figures now become the tar- gets at which we are shooting and shall be shooting in doing our long term cost- ings in this year and subsequent years. Therefore the various departments of the Ministry, in recosting their programmes for these years, will on the one hand be working to the targets inherent in row b of paragraph 46 and on the other hand will be working on the basis of effecting the cuts described throughout the memo- randum in order to keep within these targets. We may find as we go along that the exact point of implementation of the cuts turns out to be a little different from what we foresee now. There are all kinds of factors that can affect this. But if your question is are we now orientating our planning and our future costing on both the policy and the financial parameters of the Defence Review, the answer is yes. (Mr. Evans.) Could I add to that that we fully expect our estimates for next year when published will be consistent, given the different price level, with the £3,700m. figure that is shown in the column for 1975-76. (Mr. Hockaday.) I believe they are within one million, are they not?

Mr. Roper.

221. On the specific manpower effects on the £1,000 m. cuts, Mr. Hockaday said

there was a great deal he could say about those cuts. While I am not asking him to say a great deal more I wonder whether there are any specific things relating to matters we discussed last week and in earlier parts of the memorandum, the effects thereon if the cuts had reached the level of £1,000 m. which he would like to tell the Committee about?

I will try to be brief. Perhaps it will suffice at any rate as an initial reply to Mr. Roper if I say that as far as we can see we should have to reduce the fleet by some 40 per cent., to reduce the British Army on the Rhine to less than half its present strength. So far as the RAF is concerned, very heavy cuts in front line aircraft, the MRCA programme would have to be abandoned, and indeed in some areas the cuts on front line strength might be as much as 75 per cent. This would mean, as I indicated earlier, that we would be on quite a different level of operation as a military power from anything that we have previously known. Take the Rhine Army, for example, the Rhine Army would not be large enough to hold the front of 60 kilo- metres that is at present assigned to it, nor would we be likely to be able to equip it to the kind of standards that we think appropriate to modern armoured war- fare in central Europe. Similarly, with the kind of reductions in the other two services, our contribution to NATO and the Eastern Atlantic and Channel would be very heavily reduced. There is no other ally, so far as we can see, who would replace it. As for the Royal Air Force, we would have a very much reduced offensive capability which would be based essentially on reduced numbers of Jaguars and Buccaneers, and that and an ageing maritime reconnaissance force would be about all that we would have. So that whereas we believe that the decisions we have taken in the Defence Review will still enable us to make a substantial and valid con- tribution to NATO strategy, although in a slightly smaller number of areas in NATO, the implications as far as we can see them, and of course we have not been into them in as much depth as for the review that we are making, of the £1,000 m. cut would be that we would no longer be able to make a significant con- tribution to NATO strategy. The