Army vehicles are being neglected while the Royal Navy is getting new aircraft carriers, a former Armed Forces chief has warned.
General Lord Nick Houghton, who was Chief of the Defence Staff from 2013 to 2016, blasted the decision to spend £6.2billion on two huge carriers.
Outlining the state of Army vehicles, the ex-soldier told peers and MPs: “We should not be having those in the inventory still of a Tier One nation.”
He added: “It’s not a national disgrace but it needs urgent attention.”
Top brass and ministers are “neglecting” vital refits of vehicles, said the peer.
Comparing investment in new equipment between the Army and Navy, he added: “To an extent, the Army should be in a better condition with its armoured fighting vehicle fleet than it is, and the Navy has done reasonably well out of the programme of late.”
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Pride fuelled the move to splash the cash on HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales - and continue with the projects even when costs spiralled and cuts were needed, he suggested.
He told Parliament’s National Security Strategy Committee that in 2010 he warned: “I think this is a bad idea. We will rue the day - we can’t afford these things.”
The warships - the Navy’s biggest ever at 65,000 tonnes - would be “the totemic capabilities of Empire”, he told ministers.
But the money would have been better spent on more frigates and destroyers, said Lord Houghton.
“It was my view that from a wholly military capability against the threats on the day, that we would have been better spending the money on increasing the size of the surface Fleet than on what we did,” he said.
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“But (the carriers) were deemed to be too totemic, if you like, to Britain’s sense of its place in the world.
“It would have sent too great a signal of our diminution and for all sorts of reasons looking ahead, they thought, ‘No, we will stick with these things, it’s too late to change our mind’.”
The peer added: “From a political perspective, in terms of national ambition and hard power, that is what they wanted to do.”
Lord Houghton also tried to dispel fears over the size of the Army, which is some 4,0O0 troops under-strength from its 82,000 target manpower.
He compared highly-trained UK soldiers to “Jedi knights”.
“I do not like comparisons with other nations in terms of numbers,” he said.
“You cannot compare it with nations whose armies primarily mainly consist of mess waiters and hall porters.
“If you have got 72,000 Jedi knights then you can do quite a lot.”
