Jack: Black Watch to be axed was never on the agenda
Alister Jack has criticised reports the Black Watch ever faced being axed and labelled them “unnecessary scaremongering”.
The Scottish Secretary yesterday insisted at no point was the battalion considered for cuts and suggested the claims were simply political.
Mr Jack was visiting RAF Lossiemouth in Moray just one day after defence secretary Ben Wallace outlined a major overhaul of the armed forces, including reducing the number of army troops by 10,000.
He said: “I can confirm there’s a merger of two regiments, but all other cat badges, as the defence secretary likes to refer to them, are safe and secure.
“We get all this nonsense about the Black Watch being under threat, trying to raise unnecessary concern and scaremongering.
“Since I've been Secretary of State for Scotland I've been told many times and I've read many times that the Black Watch are under threat, but in all my discussionswith the defence secretary, the Black Watch has never been on the agenda.”
Plans unveiled by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) on Monday would leave the overall strength of the army around 72,500, with other branches of the military braced to lose some “industrial age” capabilities, with older tanks, ships and war planes to be axed or phased out early.
Having spoken to troops at RAF Lossiemouth, which will now become home to three early warning and surve ill ancee -7 Wedgetail aircraft in 2023, Mr Jack insisted the forces understood the approach from the UK Government and were not against the cuts.
He said: “I'm travelling with the chief of the air staff and obviously there are troops here as well in Moray.
“The threshold has dropped by 10,000, so from 82,000 to 72,0000, but the reality is that the current troops numbers and actual strength are 76,000 so it's a drop of 4,000 over the next ten years.
“That will be done by retirement, rather than redundancy.
“More money will go into kit, into drones, into robots and these sorts of things. Technology is the future.
“Everyone i’ ve spoken to today think that’s perfectly sensible.”
The details emerged despite a 2019 pledge from the Prime Minister that “we will not be cutting our armed services in any form”.
Mr johnson added at the time: “We will be maintaining the size of our armed services."
Mr Jack also defended the decision to expand the UK’S nuclear missile capacity which with the stock pile growing from 180 to 260.
He said: “They are necessary for the United Kingdom for all our safety and four our commitment to NATO. “I would make no apology for the increase in the threshold we’ve announced, it doesn’t mean we are going to necessarily increase the number and we don't declare the number we have.
“We’ve increased the threshold to 260, I think the French threshold is 300.
“The threats around the world are increasing, there are more nuclear missiles in places where we would not like them to be if that makes sense, there are more areas of concern.”