| YJCMSTU |
Parachute training in the Army is set to be halted for four years as part of a £1 billion cost-cutting programme by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The proposals mean that Britain will be without a parachute-trained force for the first time since the Second World War when the Parachute Regiment was created on the orders of Winston Churchill.
Documents leaked to The Sunday Telegraph reveal that no new recruits or even serving members of the Parachute Regiment or airborne forces will be trained in military parachuting from next year until 2011. It will then take a year to get the Army's 2,500 paratroopers up to scratch.
The cost-cutting programme is being launched after defence chiefs warned that spiralling costs of complex equipment and the demands of military operations would create a financial "black hole" in the MoD of £868 million by the end of the next year.
The severity of the crisis prompted one of the Government's most senior civil servants to describe the situation as "an extremely difficult position with no clear way forward".