BLACK WATCH WILL FIGHT ON
SNP slams huge bill for ‘vanity projects’ after Tories reject free school meals for kids
A MASSIVE £16billion increase in military spending will save the historic Black Watch h regiment from the axe – and see a rocket launched from a Scottish “Space e Command” site in 2022. 2.
Prime Minister Boris is Johnson used a speech to the he Commons yesterday to announce the spending boost ost – which includes a commitment to expand the shipbuilding programme on the Clyde.
Johnson claimed the biggest defence spending boost since the Cold War but the SNP insisted the Tory Government had its priorities “all wrong” as the Nats slammed spending on the UK’s Scottish-based nuclear sub fleet.
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford questioned how the Tories found cash for defence while rejecting free school meals. Johnson “guaranteed” the future of the Black Watch and the Department for International
Development HQ in East Kilbride as he announced the £4billion-a-year spending rise over four years.
Responding to concerns raised by Blackford, Johnson said: “Of course we’re going to guarantee the Black Watch and that DfID will remain in East Kilbride, as long as he doesn’t continue with his ambitions to break up the United Kingdom.”
Speaking remotely from selfisolation in Downing Street, the
PM added: “It is preposterous to listen to the Scottish National Party talking about their desire to support defence when everybody knows fine well it is thanks to UK-wide investment that we’re able to deliver not just the Black Watch and DfID in East Kilbride but a fantastic programme of shipbuilding in Govan and Rosyth.”
Blackford said the SNP had “serious reservations” about the windfall for defence spending and that the Tory priorities were “all wrong”. He said: “Scotland remains overwhelmingly opposed to weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde.
“We need to respond to these challenges rather than on vanity projects.”
Blackford added: “Just three weeks ago this Government refused to provide free school meals for children during the holidays and we have learned that he is considering cutting the overseas aid budget by millions of pounds.”
The PM was challenged by Labour leader Keir Starmer to explain how the defence announcement would be paid for and to honour a “very clear” Tory manifesto commitment to maintain the overseas aid budget. Johnson said: “There is absolutely no relation to discussions about overseas aid.”
The commitment will finance the Ministry of Defence’s current
order of eight Type 26 and five Type 31 frigates on the Clyde, protecting vital shipbuilding jobs and the next generation of warship, the Type 32, which would also be built in the UK.
Johnson’s RAF Space Command plan could see the first rocket launched from Scotland in 2022. Several sites in the Highlands and islands are competing to become spaceports.
Downing Street said Scotland played a critical role in the UK’s defence. It said the country’s “geographical position” makes it “an ideal home for half of the UK’s Typhoon force and the Royal Navy’s entire submarine service, and to its people, who have always answered the call of duty to serve their country”.
A National Cyber Force is already operating against terrorists, organised crime and hostile states, Johnson said.
He suggested that, in future, a soldier in hostile territory would be “alerted to a distant ambush by sensors on satellites or drones”, with art i f i ci al intelligence helping devise the best response which could involve an air strike, an assault by drones or a cyber-attack.
Warships and combat vehicles could be equipped with “inexhaustible” lasers, Johnson said.
Although there was a guarantee on the Black Watch, a defence review is expected to see cuts to the Army and a reduction in its use of tanks to offset investments in armed drones and upgrading Trident.
The announcements form part of a wider review of the UK’s foreign policy and security objectives which will now not be published until next year.
Malcolm Chalmers, of the Royal United Services Institute, said: “It is the largest real- terms increase in the defence budget since the early years of the Thatcher premiership, a rise of 10 to 15 per cent in real terms.”