Unfortunately, this (and previous) Governments are proving themselves to be the absolute masters of knowing the cost of everything, but never really understanding the value; they can read a balance sheet, but never get the true balance of the operations (highlighted by the comments of SFO and others above) that the likes of MPA gave this nation. The people who made this decision either don't understand, or do understand but have decided that something is more important, or don't care; either way it is being poorly communicated.
Many of us will feel the effect of this decision in some way; I'm ex-Army and the nearest I ever got to one was when I got arrested for wandering to close to one with lots of funny appendages, but even I recognise that you cannot discard however many years of expertise without some consequence. I really hope this does not come to bite us in the back-end.
Respect.