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14-12-2004 Scotsman Labour MP attacks army cuts By Gethin Chamberlain and James Kirkup THE government would be "profoundly unwise" to cut the size of the army at a time when it is already grossly overstretched and with a general election looming, the chairman of the Commons defence select committee warned yesterday. In an outspoken attack on his own party's plans, Bruce George, a normally loyal Labour back-bencher, warned that cutting the size of the army and doing away with popular local regiments risked provoking resentment among voters. And despite the government's insistence that the decision on where the axe will fall has been left to the military, Mr George said finding the cash to stave off the worst of the cuts was a matter of political will. The Labour MP's attack gives an indication of the depth of feeling at Westminster over the proposed cuts. The announcement on which regiments will be axed and which will be merged is expected to be made later this week. With the final Black Watch soldiers arriving back in Britain yesterday from Iraq, the government is now spared the embarrassment of announcing the end of the regiment while it is still in the firing line. But the timing of the announcement was still the subject of Whitehall wrangling last night. While Ministry of Defence sources said they expected to make a statement on Thursday, Downing Street was understood to be considering bringing forward the announcement to tomorrow. Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, is due to fly to Brussels for a European Union summit on Thursday. Some Downing Street officials were worried that announcing the mergers on the same day could lead to allegations that the government was trying to bury bad news, or that the Prime Minister was not focused on the fate of the regiments. Political calculations over the timing of the controversial announcement had already put paid to plans by General Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the army, to brief his troops on the changes yesterday. The latest vacillations have served to fuel Gen Jackson's apparent anger over the shifting timetable. One military source last night said that the general was "not a happy badger". Mr George, - whose own constituency, Walsall South, is home to the threatened Staffordshire Regiment - pulled no punches. "I am far from convinced that what the government is proposing is valid," he said. "The impression I have is that it would be profoundly unwise to cut the size of the army. The demands upon them are heavier than even the present number can cope with. "To lop off another 1,500 is folly. There is a stronger argument for increasing the size of the army by 5,000 to 10,000. We are grossly overstretched at the moment." He questioned how the army would be expected to cope if they were faced with another firefighters' strike or a situation such as the foot-and-mouth crisis. He also voiced concern about the Territorial Army, which has provided thousands of soldiers to serve in Iraq and other hotspots. "The TA is reaching breaking point," he said. "When these people joined the TA they didn't expect to spend months and months in Afghanistan and Bosnia and Iraq and there is a limit to what employers will tolerate." He cautioned that the timing of the cuts, coming so close to a general election, could have serious political repercussions. "At a political level, I would have thought that six months before an election you don't bust the regiments," he said. "I cannot see the purpose of inflaming opposition by eliminating regiments - I really can't see the advantages of provoking resentment." Senior figures in the army - including Gen Jackson - have made it clear that the cut of four infantry battalions is undesirable and that the move has been forced upon them by the Treasury's refusal to free up more funds for the armed forces. Yesterday Mr George suggested that the fate of the regiments depended on whether Tony Blair's government had the political will to find the cash to save them. "We live in a system where political pressure can yield the right result," he said. "They will find the money from somewhere - it is a matter of political will." Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, is expected to make a Commons statement this week confirming details of the plans to cut the number of infantry battalions from 40 to 36. Single battalion regiments such as the Black Watch are expected to be merged into other regiments, though they may keep their cap badges and identities within the new structure. Mr George argued that the government's chosen formula was unnecessary. "If they think that leaving them with a cap badge and a museum will retain a regimental spirit, they are wrong," the defence committee chairman said. He suggested that the regiments should be grouped together into a broader brigade structure to enable them to retain their individual identities, rather than moving to the system of super-regiments that the MoD is proposing: "That would be a nonsense," he said.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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