Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Lord Beamish

Thursday 15th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I agree, which is why the White Paper was complete nonsense. Not only did the sums not add up, but there were no practical proposals to generate those forces from an independent Scotland. Scotland would have information, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance capabilities and other assets but would have no capacity, because of the numbers involved, to analyse what was collected or what its purpose was. For example, it would need fast jets and other things. It was just bizarre, to be honest.

[Brendan O’Hara]

Does the hon. Gentleman think it fair and equitable that Scotland has only 6.3% of the armed forces personnel, down from 7.1% in 2012?

[Mr Jones]

I know that the Scottish nationalist party wants to play up its victim mentality, which it has turned into an art form that I admire, but the idea to which the hon. Gentleman’s White Paper refers, which is that Scotland could provide the manpower needed for its proposals from the Scottish population, which is getting older, was absolute nonsense—[Interruption.] May I give him some evidence? He needs only to look at the recruitment to Scottish regiments when they were reorganised. Why was one regiment in Scotland—

[Mr Jones]

I would refer, for example, to the recruitment of overseas nationals from the Commonwealth. The regiments that had to backfill with Fijians were the Scottish regiments because they could not get the numbers within Scotland. If the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute has some magic pool of people in Scotland who will suddenly join the armed forces or if there is some huge boom that will happen in the next few years that means that 18-year-olds and fit individuals will join the armed forces, I would like to see them.

[Brendan O’Hara]

The hon. Gentleman is not exactly doing the idea of the United Kingdom a great service. Indeed, he is pointing out everything that is wrong with the current system.