Patrick Mercer
Main Page: Patrick Mercer (Independent - Newark)Department Debates - View all Patrick Mercer's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dr Fox
As I said, as a whole following the SDSR we needed to reduce from four to three the fast-jet hubs in the United Kingdom. Clearly Marham and Coningsby were not really alternatives in that regard and we therefore decided it was going to be either Leuchars or Lossiemouth for the fast-jet basing in Scotland. The view was taken not just inside the RAF, as I have said, but across all the services that there was an opportunity to move an Army presence into Scotland if we had sufficient bases to do so and, in the south, Leuchars was key to that. That enables us not only to have an RAF presence in the periphery of Scotland but an Army footprint—a military footprint—right in the centre. That offers us potential when we are looking for ways of giving business to small and medium-sized enterprises, for example; having that base in south central Scotland is going to be advantageous.
Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)
May I congratulate the Secretary of State on his emphasis on greater deployability? I have been privy today to a discussion in the Ministry of Defence about which regular infantry regiments might face the axe in the near future. Will he assure the House that that is just speculation and that our bayonet power will not be affected?
Dr Fox
Exactly how the Army develops its plans as we go towards 2020 will increasingly be an issue for the Army, not least with the greater devolution that we have inside the armed forces as a result of the announcements I made in June. I know, having had discussions today and recently with the Chief of the General Staff, that that is certainly one of the issues the Army will be looking at extremely closely.