The government has been warned that its cuts to the armed forces will jeopardise their ability to carry out future missions. In a strongly-worded report, the Commons' Defence Committee rejects the prime minister's assurance that Britain will retain the ability to conduct all types of military operation in the wake of last year's Strategic Defence Review.

The review set out plans to cut 17,000 personnel, as well as the withdrawal from service of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, the RAF's Harrier jump jets and Nimrod surveillance aircraft.

But speaking on the programme, the armed forces minister Nick Harvey said that he did not accept the military is overstretched and insisted that the government's position was realistic.

"We don't know what from time to time will come up, but we have the capacity to handle both long-scale enduring operations, and some of these ad-hoc ones that come along, and Libya is an ad-hoc one that has come along," he told presenter Evan Davis.

"Now of course with less manpower and fewer assets than we had previously, we're working people and assets harder, but this is well within the range of capabilities that we have, and I don't accept that this in some way untenable or unsustainable."

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