A SENIOR defence official has warned that the armed forces are heading for a “train crash” because the government is starving them of funds for vital equipment.

In a confidential presentation to colleagues at a meeting in the Ministry of Defence to discuss budget cuts, he said defence spending had been so severely pruned that vitally needed equipment was simply unaffordable. He also warned that the government risked “mortgaging the future” of national defence.

The official, a senior defence equipment capability manager, resorted to black humour, portraying the Treasury as an axeman who has cut off the arms of his MoD victim and is saying: “Stop whingeing . . . at least you have got your legs.” The meeting, one of a series to try to work out how to pay for all the equipment the forces need to meet their commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, was also told that the Treasury has exaggerated the increase in the military budget.

Officially, it will rise by a modest 1.5% this year. In fact, it will increase by only 0.6% in cash terms, leaving a black hole of hundreds of millions of pounds, the meeting was told.

The mutinous mood over Gordon Brown’s tight rein on military spending follows criticism of the MoD last week by coroners investigating the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. They accused it of failing to provide troops with adequate equipment.

Gerald Howarth, Conservative defence spokesman, said yesterday that the way in which funding for defence had been cut was “an absolute scandal of catastrophic proportions”. He said the government was “guilty as charged by the coroners last week – ‘unforgivable and inexcusable’ ”.

Nick Harvey, Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said: “The words of the coroners last week should be ringing in their ears. This is the reality of why Paul Drayson quit [as defence procurement minister] – there is such a gross mismatch it wasn’t possible to look anybody straight in the eye and defend it.”

MoD officials have been struggling to prepare pruned-down spending plans in advance of a meeting of defence chiefs and top civil servants this Thursday, which will thrash out the final details of the cuts. A week later the plans will be presented to ministers who have insisted the cuts must be made by stealth, according to MoD sources.

Both the prime minister and Des Browne, the defence secretary, have made it clear that to avoid political embarrassment no major programme can be seen to be cut, the sources said. Big programmes must be pushed back into future years while other items on the budget suffer harsh cutbacks.

Browne told parliament last July that the defence budget would rise to £34 billion over the next financial year and would rise by 1.5% a year in real terms over the next three years.

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