2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

It gives me great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) in this important debate, and it gives me great pride to be one of four Warwickshire MPs on the Government Benches in the debate. Warwickshire is one of the smallest counties in our country, but we make strong representations for it with great pride. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on a tremendous campaign. He should be very proud of his efforts.

When the Secretary of State made his initial statement, I said that my constituents would be deeply concerned over the announcement to disband 2nd Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. I also said that my constituents would welcome the retention of the Gurkha regiments. I stand by those comments, but since the initial statement, I have spoken to many of my constituents. They are not just deeply concerned, but absolutely devastated that 2RRF is to be disbanded.

My constituents have a deep affection for the regiment, which they demonstrated in September 2010, when the regiment was given the rare honour of freedom of our borough. Thousands of local people lined the streets proudly to welcome home 200 brave soldiers from the 2nd Battalion. Not even an unsavoury element from the English Defence League could dampen the enthusiasm and pride of my constituents on that day. It was with that same degree of pride that I felt humbled recently when I marched through Nuneaton town centre shoulder to shoulder with Fusilier veterans in support of their campaign to save the 2nd Battalion. It is with pleasure and pride that I am wearing the regiment’s tie, which I have been asked by veterans to wear.

The passion and pride of my constituents stems from the long history of people from Nuneaton joining that proud regiment of Fusiliers. My constituents were pained when two brave young Fusiliers, Fusilier Louis Carter and Sergeant Simon Valentine, were taken from us recently in the conflict in Afghanistan. The proud mothers of both Louis Carter and Simon Valentine are strong supporters of this campaign. Mrs Carter and Mrs Valentine, along with many of my constituents, will be watching this debate with great interest.

I stress that I understand the challenges that the Secretary of State and his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), have faced since coming to office. I understand and agree that changes to our armed forces are inevitable given the deficit, the debt and the black hole in the defence budget that we faced when we came to office. I have supported many of those changes, however unpalatable they were.

That said, many of the changes were made using the principle of evidence-based policy. The decision to disband 2RRF follows that principle to an extent, but the evidence-based approach is skewed by what seems to be a more political criterion overlying it. I fully agree that the main criterion and determinant in the decision-making process should be military capability and sustainability. It seems somewhat strange, particularly on the point of sustainability, that 2RRF can fall on the basis of that criterion when five less sustainable regiments are being maintained. By adding the criterion of allowing a single regiment to lose a maximum of one battalion and the principle of losing no cap badges, the Government have moved from evidence-based policy that depends on military grounds to a policy that looks like a political fix. That has muddied the waters.

The only conclusion to be drawn is that the political will goes beyond the Government’s headline policy. I fully appreciate the assertion, in view of the facts presented thus far, that 2RRF is the fall guy for the Scottish regiments, which have a far poorer recruiting record. With the Scottish independence question before us, this is a persuasive theory which is hard not to believe. That said, I do not advocate abandoning the Scottish regiments. On the contrary, we need to be more imaginative. That seems to have been the case with previous reorganisations. I would be interested in the Minister’s explaining why regimental troop numbers across the review cannot be considered to see whether 2RRF can be retained. That approach would help with the sustainability of other regiments that are probably far less successful at recruiting.

Whatever method we use to resolve the impasse, today’s debate shows the strength of feeling across the country among Members representing constituencies such as mine. The 2nd Battalion deserves a far better hearing than it is getting, not only on the grounds of sentiment but on factual grounds of capability and sustainability. I appeal to the Secretary of State to reconsider how the decision was arrived at and to support 2RRF.