Sir – For some months now there has been a heated debate about the scrapping of the Harrier force and the Royal Navy carriers.

The Government has hit back claiming that the Harrier force had to be scrapped because it could no longer afford to keep it.

The events in recent weeks have seen most of the Harriers sold to the US marines for a bargain sum of £32 million.

These Harriers will be stripped and used as spare parts for the US Harrier fleet as the US marines regard the Harrier as one of the best aircraft available to them.

At the same time we are struggling to pay for a Tornado force to carry out bombing raids in Libya at a cost that will hit £100 million by the end of this year.

The Harrier fleet on board a carrier would have cost half of this amount and would have done a better job in raids on ground targets in Libya becuase it could have been hitting its targets within minutes and not hours as is currently the case.

I think it should be the duty of the Government to step forward and explain to the taxpayer why they scrapped a Harrier force that was recently upgraded at a cost to the taxpayer of more than £1 billion.

The upgrade made the GR9 Harrier one of the most effective aircraft in the world.

I would just like to ask Mid-Worcestershire Peter Luff (in his capacity as Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology) why we have wasted billions of punds to save pennies.

As a Conservative voter I think I and everyone else deserves the truth.

John Callow Martley