Army 2020

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, a year ago next Tuesday, the Prime Minister stood up to address the National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff and said he wanted to record his gratitude to the brave Welsh regiments. He went on to say:

“From the trenches of Northern France to the mountains of South Korea they have fought and died in defence of our nation and our values”.

He concluded by saying,

“I will always be an advocate for this country and everything it has to offer”.

Wales can offer no greater sacrifice than the lives of her young men in defence of our country as we have seen in Afghanistan. With the Prime Minister’s words fresh in my mind—and perhaps more in despair than in hope of an answer—what more could we have done in Wales to protect the Welsh regiments from these government cuts, short of threatening a referendum on independence?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I share the noble Lord’s respect for the Welsh regiments. The CGS, supported by his command team, has made very hard choices in deciding where reductions are made to bring the Army size down to 82,000, and the Army has rigorously applied a set of criteria to make these difficult decisions. They were based on capability, recruiting demography both now and in the future, appropriate national representation and solutions that do not undermine regimental principles, established in the last round of changes in 2004. Previous mergers and deletions were also taken into account, to ensure that decisions were seen as fair by as many people as possible.