Gordon Brown has been personally accused of treating the Armed Forces with contempt and of leaving the military with a “desperate funding situation”, in an unprecedented attack by five former Chiefs of the Defence Staff.

In a highly damaging outburst which coincides with the Prime Minister’s absence from Britain, peers rounded on the Prime Minister for giving Des Browne responsibility for Scotland as well as defence, calling it an “insult” at a time of war.

The former senior military figures also complained that Mr Brown all but ignored the military both as Chancellor and Prime Minister, and gave a grim warning of “blood on the floor” at the MoD because of a lack of resources.

Last night an adviser to the Prime Minister went on the offensive, saying that the former defence chiefs had “deliberately attacked” him while he is attending a Commonwealth summit in Uganda. In a debate in the House of Lords on defence, peers said that Mr Brown had shown little interest in the military since entering government.

General Lord Guthrie, one of the former Chiefs of Defence Staff, said that Mr Brown had been “unsympathetic” to the military as Chancellor. Lord Guthrie said: “He was the only senior Cabinet Minister who avoided coming to the Ministry of Defence to be briefed about our problems.

“The only time he came to the MoD while I was there, I recall, was when he came to talk about the future of the Rosyth dockyard, which was in his constituency. He must take much of the blame for the very serious situation in which we find the Services.”

Admiral Lord Boyce, Chief of Defence Staff before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, told peers: “The core defence programme has had no effective budget rise at all.” He said it was “actually negative, especially if one subtracts the £550 million to be spent on the slum accommodation that should have been replaced years ago.

“This is why if you go to the Ministry of Defence today you will find blood on the floor as the defence programme is slashed to meet the desperate funding situation.”

Lord Boyce said the Government had ordered only eight warships since 1997. “In the same time 57 have been disposed of, 13 were destroyers and frigates, the workhorses of the fleet.” Lord Craig of Radley, Marshal of the RAF, accused the Government of breaking the military covenant, demanding: “Is it not immoral to commit forces that are underprepared and ill-equipped for their task?”

Field Marshal Lord Bramall said: “The Army is just not large enough to the tune of several thousand men. The Government must initiate a surge in what it spends on the armed forces. If there is no surge at all, the situation will get infinitely worse.”

Field Marshal Lord Inge said: “The three fighting Services are about people. They are a priceless asset.” He said if the Services did not feel that they were valued, that their families were getting a fair deal, that they were being adequately trained or equipped and thought the Government did not really care, “then morale will suffer”.

Earlier this week, a leaked report showed that the head of the British Army had expressed concern about poor morale among troops.

General Sir Richard Dannatt also raised the question of the strain placed on resources by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sir Richard said that troops felt “devalued, angry” and were “suffering from Iraq fatigue”.

Baroness Taylor of Bolton, the Defence Minister, defended the government. She insisted the military had seen the longest period of real-terms growth since the 1980s. “We have been able to maintain a great deal of defence spending, while raising budgets in other areas. This country's spending on defence is the second highest in the world, being behind the US only.

“Our defence equipment now in theatre is better than has ever been the case in the past, although there are problems and pressures in certain areas which we wish we could have avoided. We have taken action to do what we could.”

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