2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers

Debate between Lord Robathan and Tobias Ellwood

Thursday 18th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

We did not call for a larger armed forces at the election itself. It was our intention. It is where we would like to go. When we made these announcements, we were not expecting Labour to have ruined the Treasury numbers, as it did.

As has been repeated again and again, Labour made a mess of something else. I refer to the madness of its procurement strategy, which wasted billions of pounds in overruns. The worst of it was delaying the carrier build by one year, which cost £1 billion alone. Given that the capitation cost of a brigade is £100 million, let us think how many battalions we could have saved. To take an operational perspective, for years our troops in Afghanistan were forced to use Snatch Land Rovers, but suddenly the last Government woke up to the fact that they were not adequate and there was a flurry of buying off the shelf. The Cougar, the Mastiff, the Ridgback—all these vehicles were purchased off the shelf, wasting huge sums of money, while our armed forces suffered on the front line. All those funding issues had a knock-on effect on the decisions we are debating today and the decisions for the future, not only on battalion and brigades, but on the order of battle.

I am an infanteer—I served in the Royal Green Jackets, another regiment that disappeared under the last Government—but I am also a national politician. We are all national politicians, and we must consider the capability of our entire armed forces—the demand to save ships; the demand to save planes, such as the Harrier, which has been debated by this House many times; the demand to save intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance capability; and, of course, the demand to save regiments, not least my own. As we have heard, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers has an amazingly proud history, dating back to James II —I am sorry that the Father of the House is not here to confirm that—and it has had an impact not just in its own area, but right across Britain as a whole. When the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers was formed, it was given the most up-to-date weapon of the day, the fusil, which gave it its name, and in the first world war it had a total of 196 battalions in operation. How different the picture is today.

We have heard some powerful arguments, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister says in response to the support we have heard for the Fusiliers. However, I would also say to him—I hope he listens carefully to this proposal—that if it is the Government’s intention to reconfigure the balance of our armed forces between regular forces and the Territorial Army more towards the Australian and American models and to increase the size of Territorial Army units, and if it is also the Minister’s intention to decide to disband the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, then why not allow this fine battalion to configure immediately into a Territorial Army unit? I absolutely accept that that is not an ideal solution, but it would prevent that footprint in history and the contribution made by this amazing battalion from disappearing in their entirety.

[Mr Robathan]

My hon. Friend will know that the Territorial review is continuing. We have had the review and we are now looking at the details, but I assure him that we will look carefully at that proposal as we expand the Territorial Army, or the reserve.

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful to the Minister. I appreciate that that is not the solution that many hon. Members, on both sides of the House, are looking for, but if it is the Government’s intention to reduce the size of our battalions, my proposal would seem to be one way of maintaining the future prosperity and history of this wonderful regiment.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Robathan and Tobias Ellwood

Thursday 16th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

I might concur. I am proud to have served on the Select Committee that scrutinised the Bill and would like to thank my fellow Committee members, most of whom are here, for the serious and careful way in which they went about their work.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Where are the Labour ones?

[Mr Robathan]

I will resist the cry from behind me to be partisan on this occasion, although I would not usually.

The Committee undertook visits to Chilwell, Headley Court and Colchester, which helped Committee members in their consideration of the Bill. I thank everybody who put themselves out to arrange those visits for us, both here and in those places.

I thank the Select Committee Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), for his good humour and wise guidance and I thank the Committee staff for their work behind the scenes. There is a gap in my brief because my civil servants said that they could not possibly put in that I would like to thank them. I would like to thank the Ministry of Defence Bill team for the work that they have done on our behalf. Sometimes, they found things marginally fraught, but most of the time they just got on with doing their work in a good-natured way. One has to take tranquilisers if one works for me. [Interruption.] I thought I would get that in before anybody else. I still have not got the letter from the mayor of Bradford, by the way.

We have a good Bill, which has benefited from the scrutiny it has received. I believe that the Bill we send to the other place is in good order. Above all, it contains much that will benefit the many people who have served, do serve or will serve in our armed forces. I wish the Bill well in its remaining parliamentary stages, and I commend it to the House.