Royal Marines

Viscount Slim Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Slim (CB)]

My Lords, it gives me the greatest pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who gives so much to your Lordships’ House and always speaks so well.

It is always a pleasure for me to talk about the Royal Marines. My parent regiment is the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, and after World War II we came even closer together. During that gloomy moment, when “Prince of Wales” and “Repulse” were sunk, those Royal Marines that got ashore, escaped and were saved were sent as reinforcements to my battalion, which was fighting on the Malayan Peninsula. The liaison and friendship has lasted. We swap an officer between us every year and we get on rather well

I make no bones about it: I hold the British politician responsible for allowing this continuing dismantling of the armed services, and one day I may hold them culpable. We are not prepared, we are not in the best of shape, and we have, I am sad to say, a Government who are always tinkering downwards. They talk about what will arrive, but even the keels of the ships are not down, certainly the submarines are not being made at the moment, and there is a lot more—armoured vehicles and goodness knows what.

I am worried about a reinforcing calamity. If we get medium to large casualties we will have a big problem reinforcing units. Let me give an example of what used to happen. In an hour-and-a-half in Korea, my regiment lost about 30 killed and 70 wounded. The system was geared at that time to get battle-trained reinforcements to units as quickly as possible. In 36 hours we were reinforced by six officers and 100 battle-trained men and once more we became a battalion worth watching. Today if you were to take 200, 300, 500 or 1,000 men from the Royal Marines, if they took heavy or medium casualties there would be no chance of reinforcements.

You do not build a Royal Marine or a soldier overnight, or in a week, or in a month. He is almost built at one year and might be really useful in 18 months. It is no good saying we will find some soldiers or marines to reinforce. It would be bad news if the marines had to take medium or heavy casualties.

The noble Lord, Lord Burnett, has already mentioned that the military relies on the Royal Marines to perform well with the Special Boat Service. The difficulty is that if you start cutting you dilute the product. The lake of selection becomes a rather muddy pond. If anything goes wrong or there is any diminution of the Royal Marines, I see great trouble in keeping up the strength of the SBS, which is a component and a large chunk of the special forces of our country. There is great danger.

I am not having a go at the Minister. The noble Earl is regarded as something rather special in your Lordships’ House. We like him and have affection for him. Perhaps I may explain it in an old soldier’s way: I would happily share a slit trench with him. He may never have been in one before and may never have had his hair parted by a bullet, but I know that he would fight like a good officer and be a marvellous companion. However, I blame his Government at the moment. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, are quite right: we have thrown British taxpayers’ money like confetti to various Governments and it is time we looked after ourselves first.