THE Conservatives were last night accused by the SNP of betraying the armed forces in Scotland as expectations rise that at least one Scottish battalion will face the axe within days.
Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, is widely expected on Thursday to announce to MPs which parts of the British Army will be cut to meet the planned 20% reduction in the regular force from 100,000 to 80,000.
Last month, it was suggested that on grounds of recruitment – a key criterion – the Royal Regiment of Scotland should lose two of its five battalions.
The latest Ministry of Defence figures showed the Highlanders battalion had a 24% shortfall in recruitment while the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders had one of 16%.
Some English battalions are also having recruitment problems, with, in one case, The 1st Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment suffering a 23% shortfall.
However, a Tory backbencher responded to suggestions that Prime Minister David Cameron had reduced the planned cut to the Scottish regiment to minimise the political fall-out in the context of the Scottish independence debate, by saying: "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."
Yesterday, the Nationalists pointed to previous Conservative pledges to reinstate axed Scottish units from cuts imposed by the previous Labour administration.
Angus Robertson, the SNP's defence spokesman at Westminster, said: "After promising to reinstate Scotland's historic regiments the Tories are now running down our armed forces even more. Reports over the last few months threatening the future of our recruited units are another intolerable betrayal of our armed forces by the UK Government."
The Moray MP argued that for more than a decade Scotland had been short-changed in terms of defence, losing 11,000 jobs and undergoing a £5.6 billion underspend.
"Labour destroyed the regimental integrity of Scottish units and the Tories are breaking their promises to restore them and are planning more cuts," added Mr Robertson.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article