By KUNA
London : The huge strains on Britain’s armed forces are driving out experienced personnel and undermining morale, an influential group of MPs warned Monday.
The performance of the forces is “deteriorating” after five years of running at full stretch in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the all-party House of Commons Defence Committee.
It is “unacceptable” that troops are still not getting enough rest time, and budgets are being put under even more pressure by spiralling costs for major equipment projects, the committee said.
The damning picture is painted in the MPs’ annual report on the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
They said “We are deeply concerned that the Armed Forces have been operating at or above the level of concurrent operations they are resourced and structured to deliver for seven of the last eight years, and for every year since 2002.” The committee warned that recruitment continues to be a problem for the military, and neither the Army nor the Royal Air Force (RAF) are likely to meet their target strengths this year.
“Shortages remain within many specialist trades in all three UK Armed Services and, in particular, within the Army Medical Service,” it added.
The Army and RAF are breaking so-called “harmony” guidelines for how long troops should spend on active duty in any given year are also being exceeded, the MPs said.
“This is another clear indicator of the pressure on our Armed Forces from the continuing high level of operations,” the committee continued.
It expressed dismay that troops are regularly being underpaid or overpaid by the Joint Personnel Administration system, and calls on the MoD to resolve the problems “as quickly as possible.” As a result of such issues, people seem to be quitting the forces in larger numbers than before, the report pointed out.
The committee highlighted that projected costs for the Astute submarine and Type 45 destroyer projects have risen by some 500 million pounds since March 2006, and the bill for the new Nimrod MRA4 aircraft is also going up.
“Such cost increases put further pressure on the future defence budget which is already heavily committed,” it added.