Soldiers ' waiting months for new uniforms' The grievance has come to light amid continued pressure on the defence budget from Coalition spending cuts. At least 30,000 Armed Forces posts are being eliminated and allowances for many personnel are being cut. Complaints about the availability of the new uniform were revealed in Soldier magazine, an official publication of the Ministry of Defence. In a letter to the magazine, a soldier named as Corporal Appleby protested about private companies selling original No 2 uniforms while serving personnel face long waits for such clothing. One firm, Survival Aids, is offering uniforms in a range of sizes and fittings for prices starting at £74.95 for men and £59.95 for women. Several other online vendors are also offering the uniform. How have they got hold of this? I have been waiting for over a year," wrote Cpl Appleby. I can only get one set of multi-terrain pattern uniform in a size that fits me, let alone Future Army Dress. How is it that a catalogue company can get their hands on things like this when soldiers cannot? In a response to the complaint, an official dealing with defence supplies confirmed that uniforms are being sold off even though there have been problems getting enough kit to serving personnel. Maj Allan Law from the Army's Materiel Support section said: "The availability of No 2 Dress has been limited due to a shortage of cloth and a change of contract. As a result, it was necessary to earmark all available uniforms for issue to Phase One recruits. Availability has now improved and unit demands are being met. The priority, however, is to issue to the recruits. When soldiers leave the Army, their uniforms are not kept for serving personal but are sold on to commercial suppliers instead, he said. "It will always be the case that uniforms withdrawn from personnel leaving the services will be sent through official disposal channels," Maj Law said. He added that the items sent to the MoD's Disposal Services Authority for re-sale are "surplus to requirements" and include items in extremely small or large sizes which are no longer required by units.