Enlarge imageBy Matt Falloon
LONDON (Reuters) - The next government should not commit to an ambitious deficit reduction plan until it has assessed the nation's future defence needs, MPs said Wednesday.
The Conservatives have promised to hold an emergency budget within 50 days of taking office.
The party has pledged to start cutting a record budget deficit this year and to go further than Labour's plan to halve the deficit over four years.
But the Defence Committee, an all-party group of MPs that scrutinises defence policy, warned defence spending should not be unfairly cut during any fiscal squeeze.
In a report ahead of an overhaul of a defence strategy which will follow the election, the committee warned "an early stringency budget might prejudge the outcome of the strategic defence review.
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"If the review concluded that the country faced a particular significant threat, the government would look foolish if only a few months earlier it had rendered itself less capable of dealing with it," the report said.
"One of the core businesses of government is the defence of the country and of national interests, and that is every bit as true during difficult financial times as during more settled times," said James Arbuthnot, a Conservative MP who chairs the defence committee.
Rising British casualties in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan have triggered criticism that armed forces are poorly equipped and underfunded.
Labour officials argue that, taking inflation into account, the defence budget has increased by more than 10 percent since the party took power in 1997.
But with a budget deficit set to top 12 percent of gross domestic product this year, whoever wins the election will need to take an axe to spending. Media reports have speculated that departments could face cuts of up to 17 percent.
The Conservatives have said they might mix international development spending with defence to fund a military-staffed stabilisation force which could operate in areas too dangerous for civilian contractors.
The Defence Committee report said the army was working at "full stretch," arguing soldiers should be allowed more time to recover from operations.
The committee said more action was also needed to prepare the armed forces for future needs beyond the conflict in Afghanistan, where about 10,000 troops are deployed.
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
