UK Downsizing Troops Deborah Haynes

Military chiefs have drawn up a plan to cut the armed forces by more than 14,000 and combine elite units of paratroopers and Royal Marines to save money, The Times has learnt.

The three sets of proposed cuts presented to Gavin Williamson when he took over as defence secretary from Sir Michael Fallon were revealed today.

The proposals — described by a Whitehall source as “ugly, ugly or ugly” — include cutting the army by 11,000 soldiers and losing 2,000 Royal Marines and sailors and 1,250 airmen. The total size of the regular armed forces is about 137,000. The army has a target size of 82,000 but at present it numbers fewer than 78,000. Reducing this to 71,000 or fewer would make it the smallest since before the Napoleonic wars more than 200 years ago.

Johnny Mercer, a Conservative MP and former army officer, said this morning on Twitter that he had submitted an urgent question for Monday about the proposals.

“Whilst we live in a parliamentary democracy that holds government to account, I and a robust core of Conservative MP’s will simply not allow these proposals to become a reality,” he told The Times yesterday. Eight years after having to dig defence out of a financial hole, I’m afraid that the British people — who pay for it — will simply not accept a government that proposes these cuts to defence, and I will not encourage them to do so on a point of integrity.”

Mr Williamson and other defence ministers are due to respond to defence questions on Monday.

Under the options, nine Royal Navy warships are under threat, including seven Type 23 frigates. More than 100 helicopters were named as vulnerable, including an entire fleet of Wildcat and a reduction in the size of the Apache force, the gunships flown by Prince Harry in Afghanistan.

In a particularly controversial cost-saving move, contained in two of the three lists of options, 3 Commando Brigade of the Royal Marines and 16 Air Assault Brigade of the Parachute Regiment would operate as more of a combined force. Such a merger would trigger an outcry within the military, with sources warning that it would erode their fighting capabilities. It would also reduce the capacity to deploy elite forces on a lengthy operation.

Mr Williamson, who took up his post in November, was said to have been “horrified” at the options that he was asked to choose between. “He did not think any were acceptable,” the Whitehall source said. “It would put the armed forces in a difficult position in light of the international threat level.”

The options were devised as part of a cross-Whitehall review of security capability and a concurrent attempt by the Ministry of Defence to tackle a £20 billion shortfall in its budget over the next decade. A decision on which list of cuts to choose was supposed to have been made by November 19 but Mr Williamson is understood to have bought more time as he and his team work to persuade Philip Hammond, the chancellor, that defence needs more investment to avoid such cuts. At least an extra £500 million is required this year and £2 billion next year.

Tobias Ellwood, a junior defence minister who is understood to have threatened to resign if the cuts went ahead, said that the defence secretary would offer an update on the review soon. “Answers are coming. Announcements will be made,” he told MPs during a debate on defence yesterday.

Insiders said that Mr Williamson has secured an agreement for defence to be taken out of the national security capability review (NSCR), which is being overseen by Sir Mark Sedwill, the national security adviser. It is supposed to be “fiscally neutral”.

It is not yet clear how much longer Mr Williamson has to work out the future for defence. “The danger is that unless the prime minister agrees the case for a comprehensive spending review or a strategic defence review, the NSCR will be a ‘work within your means’ outcome — essentially defence’s budgetary problems are for it to sort out,” a defence source said.

The cuts options offer the clearest idea yet of the areas that military chiefs are targeting to balance the books. They would come on top of three decades of reductions in the size of the Royal Navy, the army and the Royal Air Force. General Sir Richard Barrons, a former head of Joint Forces Command, said that any such reductions would push Britain towards becoming a “Belgium with nukes”. “Defence has painted a picture of cuts which are of such magnitude given the journey of reductions travelled over years that they would break the institution,” he said.

A senior Whitehall source urged the Treasury to help, saying: “You have the Treasury trying to balance the books so they can go home and sleep safely knowing their spreadsheets look really smart, unaware that the Ministry of Defence are going home at night actually very concerned that they are not able to defend our shores.”

The funding crisis has been caused by a drop in the value of the pound, which has pushed up the price of equipment such as F-35 jets from the US, a failure to meet efficiency targets and a failure to factor in fully the cost to run and repair warships, jets, submarines and armoured vehicles. A No 10 source said that Theresa May also regarded the cuts options as unacceptable. “This document was just one element of a range of possible options prepared by officials for discussions as part of the NSCR. The prime minister was extremely clear that they were not to be further developed and will not form any part of government policy,” the source said.