Fox blames Defence Ministry over job cuts

He said that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had to accept a share of the blame for the depth of cuts to the military budget that had led to thousands of redundancies.

He said: “I think the MoD consistently dug a hole for itself that it eventually found that it could not climb out of.

“It is irritating to hear some of those who helped create the problem criticising us when we try to bring in a solution.”

The crisis reached its peak at the end of Gordon Brown’s time as Prime Minister, he said. “I think there had been a loss (of trust) and in the latter part of the Brown government there was an almost complete breakdown between the MoD and the Treasury and the MoD and No 10.” Dr Fox said he wanted the armed forces to “take the pain early” so the military can balance its books and regain lost credibility. Morale within the forces had “taken a knock” but most people understood that reform “had to be done”.

About 350 sailors are being forced out of the Royal Navy against their will as part of defence cuts.

A total of around 1,020 Navy personnel will be told they are being made redundant in the first round of military job losses, a third of them compulsorily.

Some 810 sailors applied for redundancy but only 670 of them are being allowed to leave.

Dr Fox said he hoped there would be no more job losses beyond those already announced and that the Royal Navy might need to “increase in size towards the second half of the decade”.

The MoD stressed that nobody deployed on operations, preparing for operations or on post-tour leave on the day redundancy notices are issued would be forced out of their job. Royal Marines, who form part of the Navy, are exempt from the current tranche of redundancies.

The plans to cut posts were announced earlier this year as part of a programme which could see 11,000 redundancies across the Royal Navy, Army and RAF by April 2015 to bring the defence budget under control.

Earlier this month about 920 soldiers and 930 RAF personnel were told they were being made redundant, 750 of them against their will.