Armed Forces: Angus

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ellwood]

While serving as a regular officer, I had the pleasure to be based in Gibraltar, and I became very familiar with the treaty of Utrecht and the role that the Royal Marines played in securing the Rock. May it forever remain British. Gibraltarians are very proud people, and we have a strong relationship with the Royal Gibraltar Regiment.

Looking to the future, the 2015 strategic defence and security review mapped out our commitment to the Royal Marines. I am pleased to say that following the modernising defence programme, the future of HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion as amphibious workhorses has been confirmed. The Royal Marines winter deployment programme in Norway will continue, as will their training with US counterparts. We will shortly see women join the ranks of the Royal Marines in ground close-combat roles for the first time.

Turning to the base, my hon. Friend the Member for Angus will be aware that the Royal Navy first forged a valuable relationship with Angus during the last war. The Fleet Air Arm occupied the base in 1940 as a training field to train aircrew in aircraft carrier deck landing operations. In 1954, the base became the home of the Royal Navy aircraft engineering training school. In 1971, as my hon. Friend mentioned, the base became the home of 45 Commando and was renamed RM Condor. Today it also houses 7 (Sphinx) Battery, which is part of 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery, 2 Signal Regiment, 30 Commando Information Exploitation Group, and the Royal Military Police detachment. It is also home to a number of cadet operations, so it is vital for us to encourage recognition and understanding of what our armed forces do, and perhaps to introduce the idea that a career in the armed forces—specifically the marines—is worth pursuing.

Turning to the future, colleagues will be aware of the wider need to rationalise our defence real estate. The Ministry of Defence owns 3% of land across the United Kingdom, much of which is surplus to our requirements. We have conducted a wide-ranging study into what can be utilised, what needs to be continued, what is vital for training, what is needed for the future and what we can dispense with. We are transforming the estate into one that better supports the future needs of our armed forces. We will be investing £4 billion over the next 10 years to create a smaller, more modern and more capability-focused estate.

On our military presence in Angus, I can confirm that there are no plans to dispose of RM Condor as an operational base. As part of our review, we have been investigating how best to ensure that 45 Commando continues to have access to the facilities it requires to live, work and train. We are considering whether there are opportunities to undertake more defence tasks. What more can we add to our military capability in that neck of the woods to ensure we make the most of that important facility?

The MOD is investing not just in Angus but in Scotland as a whole, as other hon. Members have said. Wider afield, we have the Clyde naval base—another location I was pleased to visit not long ago—which will soon be home to all the UK submarines in the submarine centre of specialisation. The first of nine P-8 maritime patrol aircraft will be arriving in Scotland very soon. Boeing and the UK Government are working together to build a new £100 million operational support and training base in RAF Lossiemouth. In essence, Scotland is important to the defence of the United Kingdom—not just our military capability but our procurement. The Type 26 and our offshore patrol vessels are being built in Scotland, too.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

The Minister will know that during the independence referendum campaign, the Ministry of Defence made two promises about Scotland. It promised 12,500 regular personnel based in Scotland—the Government are way off that target at the minute—and a frigate factory based on the Clyde, which still has not appeared. When does he expect those promises to be fulfilled?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the pressures on us in recruitment and retention. It is a competitive environment. Per head, our footprint in Scotland is higher than anywhere else in the United Kingdom, and Scotland does very well indeed from the investment we make, despite the extra taxation that the Scottish National party has sadly decided to inflict on our armed forces personnel—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is signalling, “Carry on, carry on,” but he knows exactly what I am talking about. My hon. Friend the Member for Angus raised that important issue. We have had to step in and fill the gap to prevent the impact it would have had on individual soldiers, sailors and air personnel if it had been allowed to go ahead without our reacting to it.