MUCH has been made by the Unionists of the proposed relocation of the submarine fleet to Faslane.
However, as we know from past experience only some 15 per cent of the naval personnel live in our community and the rest reside largely in England, where they pay their taxes and bring up their families. According to Babcock local management they use the accommodation blocks on the Base at a subsidised rent during their short week and return home for weekends. Because of the facilities within Faslane they rarely venture out to spend in Helensburgh and the wider west of Scotland.
On current published Royal Navy salary scales the economic loss to this community and Scotland’s public funds is around £64 million per annum, which when coupled with the knock-on economic activity that sum could generate in the private sector we are losing four to five times that amount each year. With that sort of money Helensburgh and Lomond should be the wealthiest area not just in Scotland, but one of the wealthiest in the UK. Clearly it is not, as the presence of foodbanks, lower house prices than comparable Glasgow suburbs and its plummeting population over the last 10 years demonstrate.
Unionists are now saying that this will all change when the fleet comes. However a letter I have received under Freedom of Information from the Ministry of Defence casts a very large cloud over this assertion.
In it the MoD confirms that no official survey has been carried out amongst the existing submariner community based in the south as to its members' willingness to relocate their homes and families to the west of Scotland whenever the fleet comes here.
On a strategic planning level that shows a level of incompetence which we have come to expect in MoD commissioning contracts but one would reasonably expect that before the Navy and Argyll and Bute Council make preparations for the arrival of the fleet they would have at least surveyed the families affected by the move and know how many people will come and live here.
Unless the MoD is going to force naval personnel to move here permanently, which would be intolerable in a so-called democratic society, then yet again the British Empire’s new clothes look increasingly skimpy, and however much its local apologists execute their never-ending Faslane Dance of the Seven Veils those with Helensburgh and Lomond’s future at heart will see that the sooner Scotland extricates itself from this hollow Union the better.
Graeme McCormick,
Convener, SNP Dumbarton Constituency Association, Redhouse Cottage, Arden by Loch Lomond.
IT is hard to believe the opinion poll suggesting that the voters of Moray may replace their current MP Angus Robertson with a Conservative at next week’s election (“Top SNP figures in danger of defeat to Tory gains”, The Herald, June 2).
Moray is the area of Scotland that has suffered most from the decisions of Conservative governments in recent years. The closure of the large Kinloss air base near Forres resulted in the loss of hundreds of local jobs, and the local economy and small businesses were adversely affected by the significant loss of income from the spending of the RAF personnel and their families living locally. From a national defence viewpoint, the removal of all the vital air and surveillance over hundreds of miles of sea to the north and north-east of Scotland is also a matter of serious concern.
The last Tory government also closed the Fort George army barracks a few miles further west on the Moray Firth, ending hundreds of years of continuous military presence in the area and again damaging the local economy and jobs. Moray and Inverness voters should also remember that it is the SNP Government at Holyrood, not Westminster, which took the much-needed and long-delayed decision to finance the dual-carriaging of the M9, the only major road access to their area.
Mr Robertson has been an excellent leader of the SNP group at Westminster and an outstanding speaker in the House of Commons. He has far outperformed both Jeremy Corbyn and Tim Farron in holding Theresa May to account at the weekly Prime Minister’s Question Time and in other debates.
I find it inconceivable that the Moray electorate might overturn a 9,000 majority just two years ago and get rid of an MP who has been such a credit to their constituency and to Scotland. I hope they will think again.
Iain AD Mann,
7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.
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