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therefore be necessary to scale down drastically our force declarations under the South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) beginning early in 1968, when the first force withdrawals from the Far East affecting these declarations would take place, and also to revise the scale and timing of the military support that we could provide to Malaysia under the Defence Agreement with her. These reductions in our commitments in the Far East were essential if we were to make the necessary savings
in defence expenditure.
There would be major reductions in the capability of the forces if
Over the decade the proposals before the Committee were accepted. 1965-75 the uniformed strengths would have declined by 110,000, consisting of 80,000 in the strength of the British forces themselves and 30,000 Gurkhas and local forces; civilien backing for the forces would have dropped by 100,000; about 45,000 in United Kingdon manpower and 55,000 in locally engaged personnel. By 1975-76 the Royal Navy would cease to have any aircraft carriers and thero would have been a reduction of 20 per cent in its number of ships which would also, on average, be smaller. The Army would have lost a quarter of its major units and there would have been a reduction of 35 per cent in the combat aircraft frontline of the Royal Air Force. Overall, the volunteer regular strength of the three Services would have dropped by a fifth and, allowing for wastage, between 19,000 and 25,000 officers and men would be made redundant; it was essential that redundancy payments for these should be agreed and announced.
In terms of savings, the proposals now before the Committee would result in a level of defence expenditure at 1964 prices of £1,900 million by 1970-71 and £1,800 million by 1975-76, this had been achieved despite
Over the a peak in expenditure on defence equipment around 1970. period 1965-70 we would have reduced defence expenditure by 5 per cent while civil expenditure, on the basis of the proposals by the Chancellor of the Exchequer now before the Cabinet, would have increased in the
In addition the defence budget proposed. same period by 25 per cent. for 1970-71 had had to allow for spending £40 million on the Harrier aircraft (P 1127) project which he did not regard as necessary on military grounds, for £13 million on housing for the Services which had
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