Hammond warns he will ‘fight’ any future defence cuts

He said a further reduction in defence spending would be detrimental to the UK’s military capability.

It follows warnings from Downing Street last week that defence would not be immune from more reductions in budgets in Chancellor George Osborne’s spending review.

Arguing the government’s first priority should be “defending the country and maintaining law and order”, Mr Hammond said the greatest burden of any cuts should fall on the welfare budget.

“I shall go into the spending review fighting the case for the defence budget,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“We have made very large cuts to defence, we’ve done that with the collaboration and co-operation of the military.

“Any further reduction in the defence budget would fall on the level of activity that we were able to carry out.

‘No more job losses’

“I am not going into the spending review offering any further reductions in personnel.”

Mr Hammond’s comments are likely to be welcomed by Tory backbenchers who have been calling for a return to core Conservative values.

However they will also heighten tensions within the coalition, with the Liberal Democrats resisting a further squeeze on welfare spending.

His comments comments are likely to be welcomed by Tory backbenchers who have been calling for a return to a core Conservative values in the wake of the party’s trouncing in the Eastleigh by-election.

However they will also heighten tensions within the coalition, with the Liberal Democrats resisting a further squeeze on welfare spending.

Remarks aimed at Lib Dems

It was being made clear Hammond’s comments were aimed particularly at the Lib Dems following remarks by senior Lib Dem ministers indicating that they believed welfare spending should be protected over defence.

A Whitehall source said: “There is a real concern that the Lib Dems wants to protect the benefits culture at the expense of the armed forces”.

Former Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Michael Graydon, agreed with Hammond.

He told BBC Radio 5: “We have great capability gaps now, which we never had before. For example, we have no maritime patrol aircraft at all, we have no aircraft that can go on carriers – in fact we barely have carriers any longer.

“The army is now at a level, or will be shortly, it has never been that low for 200 years. That must surely worry people.”