£15bn for Afghanistan to come from special reserve

Britain's military operations in Afghanistan will cost more than £15bn over the next four years, the Treasury forecast today. The money will come out of a special reserve fund, which has already spent about £12bn on the conflict there, rather than the core defence budget. The Treasury also revealed that the security and intelligence agencies – MI5, MI6, and GCHQ – will not escape the cuts. They will get an extra £100m over each of the next four years specifically to counter cyber-attacks. Excluding this programme, their budgets will be frozen at £2bn – a cut of about 10% allowing for inflation. "A wide ranging package of efficiency measures will enable the security and intelligence agencies to continue to deliver while making a contribution to deficit reduction. Greater collaboration between the three agencies will make them more effective in their work, but also secure financial savings," according to the Treasury. Headline cuts in the defence budget were announced in Tuesday's strategic defence and security review — the government's attempt to present it as a separate policy-led exercise rather than one dictated by the Treasury's demands for cuts. The chancellor confirmed today that the defence budget will be cut by about 8%, falling to £33.5bn by 2014-15, excluding £3.3bn spent on pensions and other liabilities. Defence would still account for the government's largest single capital programme, ahead of transport, the chancellor added. "By focusing on maintaining key operational capabilities and by cutting out waste and inefficiency in the defence budget, the MoD will make at least £4.3bn of non-frontline savings over the spending review period," the Treasury said. The defence budget will remain above the 2% of GDP figure, a key Nato target and one recently emphasised by the US which had expressed concern about the government's intentions. In Tuesday's defence review, the government announced the loss of 25,000 civil service jobs in the MoD and 17,000 armed forces personnel, including 7,000 in the army. It scrapped the long-delayed Nimrod MRA4 maritime reconnaissance aircraft on which £3.5bn – more than the total cut in the defence budget over the next four years – has been spent, but gave the go-ahead for two aircraft carriers even though one will be either mothballed or sold in eight years' time without planes ever flying from it. Affordable US Joint Strike Fighters planned for the carriers will not be ready in time. The defence review left many decisions still to be made, including which air force or naval establishments will be closed, how a promised £300m in annual savings from "personnel allowances" will be achieved, and how much MoD property will be sold. However, today's Treasury announcements did include some detailed plans. Cuts in the use of artificial lighting on MoD property could save about 15 tonnes of carbon dioxide and £2,000 a year "per typical office", it said.