Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD):...My
second point is based on my knowledge, through my own family, of
what the situation was in Northern Ireland—I am sure that the hon.
Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) will touch on this. In their
time, both my brothers-in-law served in the Ulster Defence
Regiment. Over a long and happy marriage, I saw the situation in
Northern Ireland change from the troubles and murder—my wife comes
from County Armagh, and I know about all...Request free trial
(Caithness, Sutherland and Easter
Ross) (LD):...My second point is based on my knowledge,
through my own family, of what the situation was in Northern
Ireland—I am sure that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)
will touch on this. In their time, both my brothers-in-law served
in the Ulster Defence Regiment. Over a long and happy marriage, I
saw the situation in Northern Ireland change from the troubles and
murder—my wife comes from County Armagh, and I know about all
this—to what we see today, and may God be thanked for that. The
UDR, the armed forces, our intelligence services and the Special
Air Service played the supreme role in defeating the terrorists on
both sides of the divide. We should not forget that, but the point
is this: God forbid we should ever again have a situation, either
in the UK or close to our borders, in which we have to mobilise
that sort of force, because I doubt we could do it. Other Members
have hinted at that already. If we had to, some ask, could we
refight the Falklands campaign? No, we could not. Enough
said on that...
(Moray)
(Con):...First, Kinloss, which has already been
mentioned in the debate, was previously home to the Nimrod fleet,
but after the decision taken in the 2010 strategic defence and
security review it became home to 39 Engineer Regiment, which has
been extremely busy in the past year. It has been in South Sudan
with the UN, in the Falkland Islands, in Romania to
support NATO air policing, and in Cyprus in the anti-Daesh
coalition operations. There was much fear and concern when RAF
Kinloss closed as an air base—clearly the community was concerned,
as were the serving personnel. There was a genuine fear at the time
that nothing would be put in its place. Now, in 2018, all of us in
Moray are happy and proud to be celebrating the work done by our
excellent service personnel at an Army barracks, in place of the
air base. It is good to see that strong military tradition at
Kinloss continue—and it will continue for many years to come...
(Strangford) (DUP):...We
continue to pursue the disingenuous process of so-called security
and defence reviews and—I do not mean this unkindly—we have to and
should ask questions. Defence reviews are nothing more than
budgetary exercises where we suspend reality, forget the past,
ignore the present and dilute the future to reverse-engineer the
military into a smaller fiscal envelope. The warning signs are all
around us. There are doubts about whether the Royal Navy is able to
put its Type 45s to sea. We have aircraft carriers with no
aircraft, and helicopter carriers are sold off before they can be
replaced. The fleet cannot be fully manned, and less than a third
of it is at sea. The Royal Marines do not have the amphibious
capability to get ashore. Contrast that with the taskforce that we
sent to recapture the FalklandIslands in 1982. Can the Minister
offer any reassurance that we could emulate that today? Others have
said that it would be impossible. I do not say that, but it would
be much more difficult...
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