David Cameron has defended the decision to make 11,000 redundancies in the armed forces – potentially including some troops now on the front line in Afghanistan.
The Prime Minister conceded that axing around 5,000 personnel from the Army, 3,300 from the Navy and 2,700 from the RAF would be “difficult” for those affected.
But he insisted the losses were necessary to “modernise and update” Britain’s forces for future challenges.
Labour criticised the Government for announcing details of the cuts at the same time Mr Cameron has been suggesting the RAF could help enforce a no-fly zone over Libya.
Last autumn’s Strategic Defence and Security Review set out plans for reducing the size of the armed forces by 17,000 in total.
Some of that number will be met by not replacing people who were retiring or leaving for other reasons.
But defence officials disclosed that 11,000 personnel still face being redundant on a compulsory or voluntary basis.
The RAF became the first service to give details of its redundancy programme. The Army and Navy will spell out their approach over the coming weeks.
Some 1,020 RAF personnel will go in the first tranche, including up to 170 trainee pilots – but no qualified pilots. Up to 100 from the Weapons System Officers Branch and the same number from the Weapons System Operator Trade are under threat, along with 529 “ground tradesmen”.
A further 121 officers up to the rank of Air Commodore could go, and numbers of top brass will be reduced – but those departures will be handled outside the normal redundancy scheme.
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