April 25, 2011
CONCERN is growing over the fate of two Scottish infantry battalions, after defence chiefs outlined the first round of cuts in army and navy personnel.
Over the next year, there will be 1,600 Royal Navy redundancies and 1,000 in the army, including 150 Gurkhas.
While infantry battalions were protected in yesterday's announcement, it was confirmed the next three tranches of redundancies will result in a cut in their numbers once withdrawal from Afghanistan has begun.
Clive Fairweather, an honorary colonel with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, told The Scotsman he had seen papers and been involved in discussions that suggest up to two battalions in the Royal Regiment of Scotland may go, once the withdrawal from Afghanistan begins in the next year.
The scale of the planned cuts sparked concerns that Britain would "end up with a Danish-style defence force, not an army".
Speculation is mounting over the future of the Highlanders, currently based in Germany, and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who are stationed in Canterbury.
Particular concerns have been raised over the Highlanders, 4th Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland, who will shortly have to be re-based, as Britain seeks to withdraw its troops from Germany. They have recently been retrained from a heavy armour battalion to more flexible light infantry.
The Argylls are the most junior of the five battalions and survived previous cuts only because of the Northern Ireland troubles.
The five battalions of the Royal Regiment of Scotland havebetween 500 and 600 personnel each.
Mr Fairweather said: "It looks like six battalions across the whole army are under threat and one or two of those will come from the Royal Regiment for Scotland. Certainly, my contacts and papers I have seen suggest that this might be the case.
"Unfortunately, as the Highlanders and the Argyll and Sutherland battalions are the two most junior, they are most at threat.
"The Highlanders have a particular problem because they will have to be re-based anyway when they are withdrawn from Germany. Of course, they may end up in Leuchars or whichever RAF base is closed down, but they could be an easy target, as could the Argyll and Sutherland battalion down in Canterbury, which I say with regret as one of its honorary colonels."
He went on: "The whole thing seems to be a complete nonsense. Boots on the ground are our best insurance policy and we are still trying to be involved on the world stage, as we can see in Afghanistan and Libya. We will not be able to continue if these cuts go through.
"What we are going to end up with is a Danish-style defence force, not an army."
Concerns over the future of Scottish battalions, on top of the closure of up to two RAF bases north of the Border and the loss of the army general command post at Craigiehall, near Edinburgh, were raised in Westminster.
The SNP's Westminster leader and defence spokesman, Angus Robertson, said: "Given the ongoing conflicts, the government has a special responsibility to provide certainty to military units, which are being regularly discussed in the context of amalgamation and disbandment.
"Battalions of the Royal Regiment of Scotland like the Highlanders and Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders have regularly been mentioned as potential candidates for Ministry of Defence cuts. I reject this, given the disproportionate cuts to Scottish units, bases and spending. Scotland's military has already had to pay a heavy price."
The only infantry affected in the initial tranches will be the Gurkhas, who will be the first victims of the army's redundancy programme, with about 150 facing the axe.
Brigadier Richard Nugee, the head of army manning, said the 3,500-strong Brigade of Gurkhas was set to lose infantry, engineers, signallers and logisticians.He said the cuts were necessary following changes made to the Gurkhas' terms of service in 2008, placing them on the same footing as the rest of the army after the campaign led by actress Joanna Lumley.
As a result, Gurkhas can now serve for 22 years rather than the 15 to which they were previously restricted.
"We have already taken whatever measures we can to reduce the surplus that exists as a result of the policy change and have reduced the number of recruits coming from Nepal," Brig Nugee said.
But Gurkha rights campaigner Peter Carroll said: "I can't understand how the government can make this sort of decision at a time when we have the most amount of troops deployed abroad since the Second World War.
"There are 3,200 Gurkhas currently serving the UK, so in percentage terms, this is a deep cut and will be a huge disruption to the older, highly trained Gurkhas who have been fighting for our country for hundreds of years."
He went on: "Why make redundant the highly skilled troops who have fought for the country for years? It will be incredibly damaging to the careers and the futures of those who are made redundant."
The Royal Navy is cutting 121 officers up to the rank of captain from the warfare, engineering, medical and logistics branches, on top of 1,011 junior ratings and 274 senior ratings from various branches.
In addition, 15 of the Fleet Air Arm's 59 fixed-wing pilots are to go.
Commodore Paul Bennett, the head of Royal Navy manning, said about two-thirds of the redundancies had been a direct result of "capability reductions".
"We will have fewer ships and aircraft and so will need fewer people to operate them," he said.
The Liberal Democrat armed forces minister Nick Harvey said that no personnel preparing for, deployed on or returning from combat operations or on post-tour leave on the date the redundancy notices were issued would be made compulsorily redundant.
"We have to ensure our armed forces are best structured for the challenges they face both now and in the future," he said.
"That said, we would, of course, prefer not to have to make any of our personnel redundant, but unfortunately we inherited a huge deficit in the defence budget from our predecessors in government."
But the handling of the government's announcement on armed forces redundancies was condemned as "simply inexcusable" by Labour.
Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said the government's failure to notify personnel properly before details of the redundancies were leaked to the media over the weekend showed the military had been subjected to "shabby" treatment.
He told the Commons: "We all know no-one can stop all redundancies within the Ministry of Defence, but the first time this was mishandled, ministers said it was an accident.
"The second time, they said it was a mistake. Well, on behalf of these benches, the third time is simply inexcusable.
"It is time for this shabby treatment of our armed forces to end soon."
Scottish Infantry Regiment In Firing Line For More Cuts
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