ARMY officers of well-recruited English regiments are resentful that some of their battalions face being cut, while poorly recruited Scottish ones will be saved, it was suggested last night.
A senior Conservative backbench MP told The Herald that defence sources had made clear that only one of the Royal Regiment of Scotland's five regular battalions will go, despite three of them having some of the worst recruitment records in the Army.
Mark Lancaster, the Conservative backbencher and Territorial Army officer who obtained the figures, said: "There is a great deal of resentment among Army officers in the way that excellently recruited English battalions are going to the wall when badly recruited Scottish battalions are staying."
Colonel Bob Stewart, the former commander of UK forces in Bosnia and now a Tory MP, called for Scottish battalions to take their share of cuts, insisting they must not be protected for political reasons.
Mr Lancaster said it seemed clear General Nick Carter, who is overseeing the review, had proposed an "optimal military solution" and that "politicians should not be interfering".
He said he had no evidence that Prime Minister David Cameron was doing so but that, from statements in the Commons, Labour and the SNP were.
The latest Ministry of Defence figures show that the Highlanders battalion has a 24% shortfall in recruitment, the Royal Highland Fusiliers a 15% shortfall and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders a 16% shortfall.
English regiments are also having recruitment problems. The 1st Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment, has a shortfall of 23%, and the 3rd Battalion the Mercian Regiment, has one of 16%.
The current reorganisation of the British Army, which will see a 20% cut in regular forces, is expected to result in as many as five infantry battalions scrapped or merged.
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has made clear recruitment performance will be one of the key factors in determining which units survive and which do not.
Last night, a spokesman for the MoD stressed recruitment performance was just one of the criteria, which would determine things..
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