SCOTTISH REGIMENTS (FUTURE)

HC Deb 15 July 1968 vol 768 cc1048-116

4.2 p.m.

Mr. Michael Noble (Argyll)

I beg to move, That this House deplores the decision to abolish Scottish units announced in Command Paper No. 3701.

Mr. Speaker

May I announce that I have not selected either the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), in line 1, leave out from 'House' to end and add: 'congratulates Her Majesty's Government on following the precedent set by previous Governments in abolishing Scottish units'. or the Amendment in the names of the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson) and his hon. Friends, in line 1, leave out from 'House' to end and add: 'whilst accepting the need to reduce the total strength of United Kingdom regular army units towards a level of approximately 150,000 men, urges that, because of their potential for recruitment and service in civil emergency, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and other territorially based units which are to be abolished should be retained as reserve formations'. This does not prevent the points of view expressed in the Amendments, together with other points of view, being expressed in the debate.

Mr. Noble

My speech today, which, I hope, will be reasonably short, as so many hon. Members on both sides of the House will want to express their opinions, will be largely about the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. This is not because I do not fully appreciate the feelings of those connected with other regiments or battalions affected, but because, in Scotland, they, perhaps more than the Scots Guards, are affected. The Scots Guards are losing one battalion; the Argylls are threatened with disbandment.

I should like to start with a story recorded during the Korean War, when the Argylls were serving with an American division. The general of that division, who was an American, was wakened in the early hours of the morning by his aide and given a signal requiring immediate action. The general shook himself awake and said to his aide, "Bring me my boots. The Argylls and we will get moving immediately." I find this story rather more to my liking than the use which the Government propose to make of their boot in getting rid of the Argylls.

I should also like to make it quite clear that though I am the Member of Parliament for Argyll the question of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders affects much larger areas of Scotland than just the County of Argyll. Our main recruiting areas, apart from the county from which the Argylls take their name, have always been the Counties of Stirling, Renfrew, Dumbarton, Clackmannan and Kinross. I am quite certain that the Government's decision will have brought the same blight of sorrow to a great many families in those areas as it has in Argyll.

We in Scotland felt a great deal of sorrow about the disappearance earlier this year of the Cameronians. Therefore, this is not an isolated incident. I am sure that no Scottish regiment wants to place its own merits above that of any other. It is our view on this side of the House that there should be no further cuts in Scottish regiments or units at all.

When we look at the problem and and understand at least part of the problems which the Government have brought upon themselves, it is fair to consider for a moment the reasons which may have influenced them in their decision. I took part in a television programme last week with an hon. Member who suggested that perhaps the Argylls had been chosen because their commanding officer was less than fully responsible, and that by their action in Aden the Argylls had become the worst ambassadors for Britain in the Middle East.

I entirely disagree with that view, and I believe that it would also be entirely disagreed with by the Secretary of State for Defence, with whom I have spoken in the past, and who has always given it to me as his view that Colonel Mitchell was an extremely efficient and gallant soldier.

The second reason why it was suggested in the television interview that the Argylls might well be dispensed with was that there were many hon. Members opposite who do not want any commitment east of Suez, and, therefore, by implication, as the Argylls have made a great deal of their famous name and tradition in the East, it was perhaps suitable that they should go.

I cannot believe that this is a serious reason for picking one regiment rather than another. It is true that in the last war the Argylls' defence of Malaya and their many actions in Egypt and Europe made them well known to friend and foe alike. It is also true that during the past few years their record in Korea, Borneo, where they have served three times, and Aden have all been outstanding—this in a theatre of war which is particularly difficult for both soldiers and commanding officers.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (West Lothian) rose—

Mr. Noble

Perhaps I may finish my speech. I know that the hon. Gentleman will want to make his own speech later.

Mr. Dalyell

The right hon. Gentleman has made a specific reference to me.

Mr. Noble

Then I will give way, if the hon. Gentleman wishes.

Mr. Dalyell

The argument was not at that moment about the Argylls in the Far East. The right hon. Gentleman will agree that it was whether there was a credible operational requirement.

Mr. Noble

Yes, but my point was not to argue the merits of whether there should be a different policy in the Far East. The implication of what the hon. Gentleman said in the television broadcast was that the Argylls might well be dispensed with because of their record in the Far and Middle East. I find this difficult to understand.

It could be that the Argylls have been chosen because in some way they were less efficient than other units who were in the melting pot, if one may use that term. But I cannot seriously believe that that can be held by anybody in the British Army. I may be biased, but I feel that they are probably the best fighting unit in the Army today. I believe that if one went to any unit in the country its officers and men would claim that position for themselves. But if one then asked them who was the next best unit the Argylls would probably come very high on their list. Therefore, I do not think that there is any question about their efficiency in this selection, and I am sure that the Minister would agree.

Can it, then, be simply a question of money? It is difficult to believe that that is the answer, because it is infinitely more expensive to train and produce a battalion of paratroops than a battalion of the Argylls. If it is just a question of money, the Argylls do not seem to me to be a particularly expensive unit for the Government to maintain.

So one comes back to what the Chief of Staff is reported in the newspapers as having said, that, all other criteria having failed, it must be a question of last in first out. It is difficult to believe that the modern professional Army is to be run in this way. This policy could not operate in any other type of business. The Minister of Defence might think that this was a reasonably good method of dealing with the Cabinet, since on this basis he would be there for ever, having been one of the first in. If that is seriously the reason for the selection of the Argylls, in this day and age, it is a thoroughly bad reason.

If the Minister is right in thinking that units must be cut, and if we are to achieve the small, highly efficient, professional Army which we need, then probably the biggest problem facing the Army today is that of recruiting. The Argylls have always had a good recruiting record, and during the last two years they have been outstanding. To cut the regiment which has the best recruiting record, surely, if we need recruits, does nothing except discourage men from other parts of the country from joining the Army. The cutting of the regiments with the best record of recruiting cannot possibly act as an incentive.

A view held by some quarters in Whitehall is that it makes no difference whether or not a regiment has a local base. None of the great regiments would substantiate that for one moment. General Graham told me over the weekend that he had personally interviewed practically every recruit into the regiment for many years. Of all the recruits that he had interviewed, 90 per cent. had said, "Sir, I want to join the Argylls", and not, "Sir, I want to join the Army"; and 60 per cent. wanted to join the Argylls because their friends and relatives were serving in that regiment. A large percentage of those serving in the regiment come from the recruiting area of the regiment and there is a great tradition of family and friends serving in it. This is one of the strongest arguments for not abolishing the Argylls.

I have two quotations which I would like to read to the House. The first one comes from a book by Colonel Angus Rose, who was an officer in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The book, published in 1944, was an unofficial record of the Argylls in Malaya at that time. He speaks of the general principle of the responsibility of people other than the Army for allowing the Armed Forces to get run down to a level beyond which it is impossible to maintain fighting efficiency.

Speaking of the last days in Malaya, he said this: These I think were the contributory causes that brought about the most ignominous defeat that Britain has suffered since the loss of the American colonies. I detect there another allusion to Lord North. He goes on: May it be seen that a share in the responsibility for this defeat must be borne by almost every section of the public. The object of recriminations is to prevent repetitions, so let each one draw his own particular lesson so far as his own duties or his responsibilities as a member of the electorate are concerned. Above all, let the cautious and conventional time servers who have not the interest of the country at heart be cast out. There are many people who, when they look at the impending fate of the Argylls, feel that this is not altogether an unworthy thought today.

My other quotation comes from a book written by Brigadier Ian Stewart, again about the last day of the campaign in Malaya. He writes: A detachment of the regiment, after covering the retreat of British and Indian troops, was cut off with very little chance of escape. The last job given them was to hold the pipe line. Three of them, ragged, exhausted and sun-tanned, made their way through a British force holding another position. Told that the Argylls had been wiped out and advised to get some sleep inside the British lines, a corporal said: 'If we are the last of the battalion then I am senior non-commissioned officer. My last order was to hold the pipe line. If the C.O. is alive, he will be expecting us there. If not, he will expect us to hold the pipe line.' The three turned back towards the enemy. Today, it is not just these three noncommissioned officers from the Argylls who may be the last of the battalion; it is the whole battalion. This spirit of turning to face the enemy in serious straits is one that wins battles, and I would say to them that they should not despair. The people of Scotland are behind them in their fight to keep the regiment and the tradition alive. As the people of Stansted won their case, so let those who are few in numbers but strong in courage take faith.

We on this side of the House do not accept that these cuts in the infantry are wise or necessary. The Defence White Paper will be discussed in detail next week, but I say to the House that if we return to power before the Argylls are disbanded we shall seek to find a way of retaining an appropriate place for this regiment, with its splendid tradition, with its fine recruiting record and with its high level of efficiency.

4.19 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. James Boyden)

I give the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) a categorical assurance that it was not the capacity of the present Commanding Officer of the Argylls, nor the Far and Middle East record of the Argylls, nor their efficiency that led to their disban-ment, but I must take the fate of the Scottish regiments in the context of the Army reductions as a whole.

The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that it was a painful duty for the Army Board to make reductions. The battalions that have been nominated in the White Paper, and in the White Paper of a year ago, have served with distinction and won fame on many battlefields; their names are household words. All these regiments have played an important part in preserving Parliament and our democratic institutions. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have played their part in these regiments and not least in the Scottish battalions which are the subject of the debate today.

However, painful decisions have to be taken, and the House will wish to know how the nominations were made. The key to the situation goes back to 1962, when the infantry of the line was reorganised. On that occasion, the infantry reformed into 13 brigades, 10 of four regiments and three of three regiments. One of the universally recognised facts of that reorganisation was that it would cater for a variation in the number of battalions, whether more or less.

The House will appreciate that the reduction of a regiment causes less disturbance if it is part of a group in which regimental identities and traditions have become linked, as they have in the case of the large brigades and as they will be in the new divisions. This was the policy in 1962, and we ourselves have carried it a stage further in the new divisions of infantry.

In the light of the experience of 1957, when the party opposite made a number of amalgamations of regiments—

Mr. Hugh Fraser (Stafford and Stone)

Including Scottish ones?

Mr. Boyden

Yes, including Scottish ones.

It was recognised that, should it again be necessary to cut a number of battalions, it could be achieved by reducing one regiment in each of the larger brigades. That was the Conservative policy, and it was well known to the infantry. It was recognised as a fair and reasonable way of preserving tradition and comradeship. Administratively, it was efficient and flexible.

At the beginning of last year, the defence reductions gave the Army Board the task of making 14 reductions—

Mr. James Ramsden (Harrogate)

I am not clear what the hon. Gentleman says was the official Conservative policy about the reductions in the infantry.

Mr. Boyden

The right hon. Gentleman will not expect me to deal with the Conservatives' policy on the present 14 reductions, but the 1962 reorganisation was based on the same principle as that which is happening now. That is the point that I am making.

There are 14 infantry reductions to be made; and I may say that the reductions proposed in all arms were made only after the most careful consideration. The most careful planning has taken place. My own impression is that the General Staff who have worked on the plans have been quite outstanding in their ability and are completely respected throughout the Army not only for their ability, but for the fairness with which they have done their work. I make that point for the benefit of the right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Hugh Fraser).

As far as the infantry was concerned, the Army Board decided that, on the lines of the 1962 policy, each of the larger brigades should be reduced by one battalion. That left four further reductions to be made. The Board decided that it would be unfair and unwise to make a second reduction so quickly in any of the large brigades, so that it was left to the Foot Guards and the smaller brigades of infantry of the line to share the burden.

The policy is perfectly clear and straightforward. The Foot Guards and each brigade and large regiment of the infantry of the line are to be reduced by one battalion. The general principle is the same as in 1962, and that was understood and accepted by the infantry. It is not an easy way out, but we are satisfied that it is fair and, in the long term, is in the best interests of the infantry, the Army and the country.

One of the purposes of grouping regiments into brigades was to even out recruiting as between regiments within the brigade. That will be even more effectively achieved by the new divisions. Because of this, coming straight to the point that the right hon. Member for Argyll made, the recruiting record of particular regiments is no longer quite the significant factor that it once was. In the past, the recruiting records of brigades did not vary to anything like the same extent as the recruiting records of regiments. It is an essential feature of the new divisional arrangement that each one has access to one of the main centres of population. We are satisfied that recruiting will be well balanced as between one division and another.

Although regimental recruiting is important, the supporters of the regiments to be amalgamated or disbanded have tended to exaggerate the significance of local variations for the Army as a whole. Over the Army as a whole, 80 per cent. of men joining simply wish to join the Army and have no strong preference as between one unit and another. That does not mean that some regiments do not have stronger affiliations and stronger loyalties in their areas. I concede the right hon. Gentleman's point about the Argylls. However, it does mean that to press the regimental concept to the extreme can damage Army recruiting as a whole and can be bad for other regiments.

Mr. John Brewis (Galloway)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Boyden

No. I want to keep my remarks as short as possible.

In the reductions which we are discussing today, the Scottish share is rather more favourable to Scotland than to England. If the battalions retained were distributed strictly according to the population of the United Kingdom, the result would be as follows. England would have 36 battalions, whereas, in fact, it is planned to have 30 in 1972. On the strict population basis, Wales should have two, but will have three, Northern Ireland should have one, but will have three, and Scotland should have four, but will have seven. Those figures include the Guards but exclude the Parachute Brigade.

Mr. James Davidson (Aberdeenshire, West) rose—

Mr. Boyden

I will give way in a moment.

The reductions in Scotland have included the disbandment of the 1st Battalion the Cameronians from the Lowland Brigade. This famous regiment was disbanded two months ago. The House will be glad to hear that nearly all the officers and soldiers have transferred to other Scottish regiments. The amount of redundancy has been very small.

Mr. James Davidson

The point that I wish to make is that Scotland, with one-eighth of England's population, supplies a third of our regular soldiers, although only 4 per cent. of the United Kingdom based Army is based on Scottish soil. In other words, England has one regular soldier per 1,000 of the male population, whereas Scotland has about three per 1,000.

Mr. Boyden

The point that I am making is that, as between England and Scotland, this is a fair arrangement. I do not depart from that.

Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)

Could the hon. Gentleman's figures have anything to do with the fact that the unemployment rate in Scotland is higher than that in England? That may be the reason.

Mr. Boyden

I am sorry to disagree with my hon. Friend. Unemployment seems to have no bearing on recruiting to the Army. In a way, that is a good thing.

The Highland Brigade is now to lose one battalion. This is a most distinguished brigade, and the House will appreciate that it was a very difficult task to select the Argylls, the Gordons, or any other of the Scottish regiments for reduction. I agree at once with what the right hon. Member for Argyll said about the Argylls, and I have picked out the most recent records of the Argylls and of the Gordons. Both regiments were at Mons, at Ypres, on the Somme and at El Alamein. The Argylls were at Casino. The Gordons were at Anzio. The Argylls served with distinction in Korea and Aden. The Gordons served with distinction in Malaya, Cyprus and Borneo. I mention these distinguished records to show there is great difficulty in assessing the qualities and other indefinable matters that go to make a good regiment.

With tremendous regret, the Army Board decided that the Highland Brigade should be reduced by the junior battalion of the brigade, the 1st Battalion the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. There are two ways of bringing about the reduction of a unit. The first is by amalgamating with another unit. The second is by disbandment. These alternatives were put to the Council of Colonels of the Highland Brigade, and its advice, which was accepted, was that the regiment to go should be disbanded.

Turning now to the Foot Guards, also the subject of today's debate, as the House knows there are at present three regiments of Guards with two battalions and two regiments with only one battalion. It was inescapable that one of the second battalions would have to go and, on the principle of juniority, the 2nd Battalion the Scots Guards was nominated.

At this point, it might be appropriate to say something about the Royal Armoured Corps. As hon. Members know, the White Paper announced that the Royal Armoured Corps would be reduced by one regiment which would be nominated at a later date. There has been a lot of speculation that this regiment will be the Royal Scots Greys, and all that I can tell the House today is that no decision on the future of the Royal Scots Greys or on any other R.A.C. regiment has been taken. When we have decided how to make the reduction in the Royal Armoured Corps, an announcement will be made.

I want to turn now to the question of how units within brigades are selected for reduction. In general, we have followed the principle that, if other factors were equal, we should select the junior battalion of each brigade or large regiment. This is not to say that we would always work to this principle: we should not do so if there were other overriding factors. But in the case of the reductions announced last week, there were no factors of such significance as to outweigh the principle of juniority.

There have been suggestions in the Press and elsewhere that in selecting units for reduction we should take into account, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, such things as their recruiting records or their qualities as regiments. I have already explained how the brigades of infantry have evened out the previous variations in recruiting as between regiments, so that in this context of unit reductions this is no longer a main factor.

As for the quality of regiments, there is no doubt that certain regiments are noted for their qualities—such as dash, spirit, steadfastness or doggedness. The aim of the Army as a whole is to have these qualities within the infantry divisions right across the board. It would be extremely dangerous, most disheartening and most divisive for the Army if there were to be a kind of auction as to the quality of the regiments. The judgments which would come out of such an approach would be bound to be instinctive and subjective. At different times different regiments are serving in different rô1es in different parts of the world.

It is almost impossible to weigh comparatively the efficiency and valour and other good qualities of particular regiments. If one were to draw up a league table of the qualities of the regiments and strike off the last six, I can imagine an absolute outcry on both sides of the House, quite rightly. There would be endless recrimination and arguments about discrimination. Nobody would be satisfied that the decisions were fair. It seems to me that the principle that has been adopted in these cases, of juniority, is well understood in the Army; it is hard, but it is fair.

While I am talking about fairness of treatment I would try, as I did in the Adjournment debate on 25th June, to dispose of the myth, raised by the right hon. Gentleman, that Scotland has been singled out for unfair treatment in the rate of reductions. In last week's White Paper the announcement was made of the reduction not only of two Scottish battalions, but of four English units. Since 1950, the percentage reduction, including the Guards, comes out as 44 per cent. reduction in English battalions, a 42 per cent. reduction in Scottish battalions, and the Irish and Welsh battalions have each been reduced by 25 per cent. There is no truth whatever in the statement that has been circulating that there is discrimination against Scotland.

Mr. Hector Monro (Dumfries)

Following the announcement of last week's White Papers, am I not right in saying that, although there has been a reduction of only 10 per cent. in English battalions, there has been a reduction of 22 per cent. in Scottish battalions?

Mr. Boyden

The hon. Gentleman cannot pick out this particular short period and make that statement as a valid statement.

Disbanding famous regiments is an unhappy business, the whole House agrees—

Mr. Emrys Hughes

Why?

Mr. Boyden

—except my hon. Friend.

The feeling of deep sadness and regret is not confined to the Scottish regiments. My right hon. Friend and I have received several deputations of members of regiments that it was expected would be amalgamated or disbanded, and I must say to hon. Members who came to see us that they conducted their discussions in a fair-minded and broad way, in the same way as I hope they will receive my remarks today. This makes it all the more grievous to read and hear some of the wilder statements made about the disappearance of battalions by persons associated with them.

To say, as some people have done, that they do not care where the axe falls as long as it is not on their own regiment helps no one. To make attacks on the Parachute Brigade as a means of saving a regiment is despicable. I earnestly hope that in the interests of the Army as a whole such remarks will stop.

Mr. Noble

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that in all the talks that I have had with officers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders not one of them has taken this line.

Mr. Boyden

There was a television broadcast in which a person—I will not name the officer; he was not a serving officer—gave the impression that he did not care a damn as long as the axe did not fall on the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

My view of the situation is contained in the words of a leading Conservative newspaper. The heading is large: Army making the best of amalgamations. Hard task for generals in effecting changes. The article starts: Contrary to general expectation, the amalgamations in the Army announced seem likely to be accepted if not with acclaim at least with resignation. This is striking proof of the Army's confidence in the Army Council. Hon. Members opposite need not get alarmed. There has not been a split in the Tory Press. That quotation from the Daily Telegraph, which, two days before, had this heading: Army cuts by pairing units, 15 line regiments and 20 artillery to go", was on 27th July, 1957.

I hope I have made it clear that the Army Board and Ministers in the Ministry of Defence sympathise with the feelings of sadness and pain which the disappearance of these regiments cause. But a contraction in the size of the Army is an inevitable consequence of the Government's determination to have a defence policy which nationally we can afford. Hon. Gentlemen opposite may attack that, but they cannot attack the logical consequences which flow from it. We are not repeating the mistake made by the Conservative Party, when in power, of taking on commitments which were beyond our economic resources. We have reshaped our defence commitments so that they accord with what we can afford.

This is a policy which is both prudent and reasonable, and it is ultimately in the interests of both the British Army and the nation as a whole. I ask the House to reject the Motion.

4.38 p.m.

Sir Fitzroy Maclean (Bute and North Ayrshire)

I am perhaps in a better position to answer some of the Minister's last remarks than some people because I was no longer a Service Minister at the time when the cuts to which he has just referred were made and I continued to criticise them for a good many years after they were made. But two wrongs do not make a right, and that is something that the Minister and hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite should bear in mind.

In the White Paper, the Secretary of State for Defence—I am sorry to see that he has gone already—recognises what he calls the "inherent fallibility" of his own judgment. That is a very telling phrase and a very true one. Considering the Government's record in defence, this admission comes, as The Times points out, not a moment too soon. This is the fourth Defence Statement that we have had in 18 months and it includes reversals of policy decisions that were taken as recently as last November. Indeed, I think that it even includes reversals of decisions made only a few weeks ago.

The Secretary of State went on in the White Paper to express the hope that the Services would now enjoy a period of stability. Well, if that is what he hopes, he is setting about it the wrong way. Let us leave aside for a moment what the Secretary of State is doing to the other Services. We are dealing today with the Army and specifically with the Scottish regiments, with the disband-ments which have already been announced and with the others which we fear may still be to come.

The Government are worried, or should be worried, by the appalling recruiting figures for the Army. The present strength is 172,000 men, excluding boy soldiers. Last year it dropped by the unprecedented figure of 5,000 in one year. If this goes on, it will have reached a strength of only 115,000 by the mid-1970's instead of the 152,000 which I understand is aimed at and which, in all conscience, is aiming extremely low.

Personally, as Under-Secretary of State for War, I was always against the proposal in the circumstances then prevailing to abolish National Service. I first opposed it inside the Government and from 1957, with the change of Prime Minister and of Minister of Defence, I opposed it outside the Government.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman want it back?

Sir F. Maclean

I think that the Government may well find themselves in a position where they either have to give up altogether or have it back. But that is all past history and no one would seriously expect a Labour Government, of their own free will, to reintroduce conscription after a Tory Government had abolished it. I think that even the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) would agree with that.

Today, rightly or wrongly, we have a professional volunteer Army. Many people who know much more about these things than I do say that this is the ideal. But now that we have got it, the Government somehow have to get enough recruits for it and the right type of recruits. And if they are not to reintroduce conscription or, as I have said, just give up trying—they must go about the job in the right way. And I believe they are going about it the wrong way.

I can think of no more effective way to damage morale inside the Army or to discourage recruiting for it than to abolish a regiment like the Agyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The same applies to the 2nd Battalion the Scots Guards, another regiment with a magnificent record. This, I agree, is a rather different question because many line regiments have felt it wrong that the Guards regiments should have two battalions each when line regiments only had one each. However, one may ask why it is that, when the Government decided to abolish the 2nd battalion of a Guards regiment, they picked on the Scots Guards. That, again, looks rather like racial prejudice.

To return to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. They are a regiment with a tremendous historical tradition and a deeply rooted local and, to borrow Field Marshal Montgomery's famous phrase, tribal connection, and a tremendous righting record dating from the 18th century and earlier, through two world wars, Korea and Malaya right down to Aden only a few months ago. They also have a first-class recruiting record.

And here I think that the Undersecretary of State rather tried to have it both ways. I understood him to say that recruiting figures are not all that important.

Mr. Boyden

I did not say that recruiting figures for the Service as a whole are not all that important, but that individual regimental recruiting figures are not quite as important as they used to be.

Sir F. Maclean

If they are becoming less important it is possibly because of the way the Government treats the regiments. But then, on the other hand, the Ministry of Defence took the trouble to put out a statement saying that recruiting for the regiments of the Highland Brigade was notoriously bad.

Mr. Boyden

I did not say that they were notoriously bad.

Sir F. Maclean

No. But the hon. Gentleman's Department did. This is a difficult one to deal with and the Minister who replies will require all his skill. The Ministry put out a statement saying that recruiting figures for the Highland Brigade were bad, and when one considers what has been done to the Highland Brigade over the last six or seven years this, if true, is perhaps not surprising. But what the Ministry rather dishonestly failed to say was that, whatever the recruiting records of other Highland regiments, that of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders was quite exceptionally good.

The Defence Secretary, who I really think might have waited a little longer in the debate, said on television the other day that 80 per cent. of recruits nowadays have no preference for a particular unit of the Army and that, if a local unit was abolished, people from that locality joined another. Now that may be true of English regiments, although I very much doubt it. But it is quite certainly not true of Scottish regiments and, in particular, of Highland regiments.

The Secretary of State for Scotland served with great distinction in the Highland Light Infantry during the Second World War. He is present and I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he ask the Secretary of State whether his regiment did not have a strong esprit de corps and everything that goes with it.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross)

I certainly confirm that the Highland Light Infantry had a strong esprit de corps and a very proud record. The Tory Government abolished it, just the same.

Sir F. Maclean

I sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman because they did exactly the same to my own regiment, the Cameron Highlanders, by amalgamating it.

Mr. Ross

And the Royal Scots Fusiliers.

Sir F. Maclean

Yes.

Mr. Ross

As well as the H.L.I.

Sir F. Maclean

I can see that the right hon. Gentleman shares my feelings on the subject.

The difference between Scottish and particularly Highland regiments and English regiments was, I think, well put about 150 years ago by General Stewart of Garth. He wrote this: With a Highland soldier it is otherwise … He is surrounded by the companions of his youth and the rivals of his early achievements: he feels impulse of emulation strengthened by consciousness that every proof he displays, either of bravery or cowardice, will find its way to his native home … Hence he requires no artificial excitements. He acts from motives within himself; his point is fixed and his aim must terminate either in victory or death. I was interested, therefore, to read in a newspaper a day or two ago what had been said on the same subject by Colonel David Boyle, a former commanding officer of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders: Every sngle Jock knows that if he does badly the woman next door at home will know that he has done badly. That comes to much the same thing.

The Scottish regiments are more than just regiments. Many men will join one or other of the Scottish regiments, but will not join any other regiment in the British Army. That is something which one cannot translate into statistics but which, in the long run, shows up clearly in the recruiting figures.

During the bleak years which followed the Rising of 1745 the Scottish regiments were the chief means of preserving intact the tenuous thread of Scotland's existence as a nation. And here I should like to pause for a moment to mop up the crocodile tears shed elsewhere by the hon. Lady the Member for Hamilton (Mrs. Ewing) who, as usual, is not in her place. She is reported as saying how awful it is that the Scottish regiments should be abolished, but we here all know perfectly well that her party is committed to doing away with the whole lot of them.

To this day the Scottish regiments have remained an essential part of Scottish national life, and in many senses, both at home and, perhaps even more abroad, a living symbol of Scotland. To my own father, for instance, who, as a regular soldier, spent most of his life abroad, his regiment, the Cameron Highlanders, was for many years his closest link with Scotland. When, in due course, I myself came temporarily to leave civilian life, it was to the same regiment, with which I had spent the early years of my childhood, that I naturally returned, and when I did it was like coming home. That is an experience which I share with innumerable other Scots.

That is why when this or any other Government—and, right hon. Gentlemen opposite are not the only culprits—destroy a regiment like the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, or the Cameronians, the Scottish Rifles, they are doing much more than wiping out one infantry battalian. That, after all, is something which the Germans have done before now, but they have come back to life. What they are doing in the name of pretended efficiency is destroying two or three hundred years of history, tradition and comradeship. They are destroying something which extends far beyond the regiment itself.

If the Secretary of State has any doubt about this, let him go to Argyllshire and the regiment's other recruiting areas and see for himself, as I did this weekend, what the feeling is there and throughout Scotland. It is for this reason that when a Government destroy a regiment like the Argylls they do so much harm to recruiting and morale. A corps of infantry may be a very tidy concept on paper. But the regimental spirit is what pulls in the recruits and, in the ultimate analysis, what wins battles. And I am very glad to have the support in this of as disin-guished a soldier as Field Marshal Templer, a former C.I.G.S., who, I was glad to see, made this point very clearly a month or two ago.

I know that the Government are under all kinds of pressure, from the "gnomes of Zurich", their own Left wing and from my right hon. Friends, and I sincerely hope that before long this pressure will be too much for them and that they will give up and go to the country and leave a Tory Government to implement the pledges which I understood my right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) to give. For I am sure that my right hon. Friend would not allow any Government of which he was a Member to carry on with the dis-bandment of the Argylls.

On the other hand, if the present Prime Minister somehow manages to run his course, I hope that his Government will at least pay heed to some of the things which I and other far better qualified and far more distinguished than I have said and are saying on this subject every day. The Government have managed to find the money for 60,000 extra civil servants in three years. If they can afford to squander such vast sums on thick red tape, surely they can spare a modicum for the "Thin Red Line".

4.55 p.m.

Mr. E. Shinwell (Easington)

What are we debating this afternoon? Are we debating the reorganisation of Her Majesty's Forces, or the simple and single issue of whether the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders should be disbanded? If we are considering the latter, I suggest that we might have waited until a more appropriate time to debate the reorganisation of Her Majesty's Forces. I therefore agree with the hon. Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Sir F. Maclean) that in this respect the debate is premature.

Because of the contemplated withdrawal of forces from east of Suez and the apparent decision to supplement our forces in Europe, sooner or later the Government will be compelled to ask the House to debate the whole subject of military reorganisation and the kind of defence which the United Kingdom requires. But this is not the occasion. A simple Motion is before the House and it is opposed by the Opposition.

The time will come, perhaps very soon, when we have to debate the reorganisation of our defence, but at this moment why allow this unnecessary debate to take place? In the midst of discussion among the General Staff and in the context of the kind of defence which the United Kingdom will require in future, why should this question of the disbanding of a regiment intervene?

It is not a matter of whether a regiment is more capable than another of recruitment. It is rather a question of local tradition, or, if the House requires a more appropriate term, a tribal military consideration. For that reason I see no reason why, in the midst of a discussion about the future of our defence, we should decide to disband this regiment. There was also a suggestion in the recent White Paper about disbanding the Gloucestershire Regiment. I recall when I was Minister of Defence, and we were engaged in the war in Korea, what happened to the Gloucestershire Regiment. The idea of disbanding the Gloucesters, with their fame and gallantry and in view of what happened in Korea, is repugnant to me.

I could understand this, if the Government had decided to reorganise our defence and disband all the regiments, the Argylls, the Gloucesters, the Hampshires —I was about to add the Durham Light Infantry, but that step has, I understand, already been taken, despite innumerable protests which I have received from the North of England. I could understand that, if we were to recruit men just as soldiers for Regiment No. 1 and Regiment No. 2, or Brigade No. 1 and Brigade No. 2. Perhaps that is the most desirable organisation of our defence. But we are still retaining traditional names associated with famous regiments.

Then why single out this regiment? I cannot understand it. Something has gone wrong with the Defence Depart- ment—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Let us be careful about this. I do not mean the civilian personnel of the Department; something has gone wrong with the people inside, but not for the first time. Anyone who has been a Minister of Defence—there are several ex-Ministers around the place; we have had so many of them since the last war, far too many, I think, and far too many defence debates and reorganisations—can recall how often we were presented with Estimates only to have them amended in a few weeks or months. I am not blaming my right hon. and hon. Friends. It is the people behind them who do not know where they are, because they cannot envisage the kind of defence which this country will require in future.

This has been argued in innumerable Defence White Papers. Is it to be nuclear war, war on the ground, in the air or at sea? They cannot make up their minds and nor can anyone in the House. We do not know. But, in the midst of all this indescribable confusion, misunderstanding, conjecture and speculation, this trumpery intervention to disband a particular regiment is not my conception of how to organise defence. There are so many experts around, but I am probably as good an expert as any, because I know just about as much as they do; and that is not saying very much anyway.

Some gentlemen associated with our defence organisation are so cocksure of everything. It might be more important if they were actually cocksure of the direction in which we were going, but they cannot be. Therefore, the time has not yet come to decide about disbanding particular regiments. That should be considered in the context of our future military organisation. We can discuss it in the defence debate next February. Why decide now?

The Minister of Defence for Administration (Mr. W. G. Reynolds)

I am finding it difficult to follow my right hon. Friend's argument. We are discussing an Opposition Motion condemning the Government for closing down one of 14 battalions. This debate has not been initiated by the Government at all.

Mr. Shinwell

I have been long enough in the House to understand procedure— or I should have been, after 46 years or so. I am aware that this is a Supply day and that the Opposition have taken advantage to direct attention to an aspect of the defence situation. They have concentrated on the proposal to disband a particular regiment. Does anyone query what I have said? I am ready to sit down if anyone does.

Mr. Boyden

I query it to the extent that it involves at least one other Scottish regiment, the future of the Scots Greys, and the remaining English, Welsh and Irish regiments. By implication, it certainly involves 14 regiments.

Mr. Shinwell

But that is precisely the Government's fault. That is what they have proposed. The Government need not have produced this White Paper at this stage. How many defence interventions do we normally have in a year? Usually, it is one. Every now and again, there is another intervention, another attempt to reconsider and reorganise our defences, and that is a mistake. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think that the time has not yet come to consider the future of all our defence organisations. We should have waited.

I am, as a result, in some difficulty— and not for the first time. I am told that I must vote against the Opposition Motion. That is what I am told. I am going to do nothing of the sort. It is as simple as that. I am speaking quite honestly. That is how I feel. When I heard about this, I said that it was nonsense.

There is a political aspect to this, and I wonder whether I dare mention it. This is an emotional subject in Scotland and it is no use quarrelling with an emotion. One can quarrel with Scottish logic and get away with it, but not with Scottish emotion. I should have thought that, with all the political possibilities which appear likely ahead of this party and of our party in Scotland, we should be mighty careful about ventures of this sort. [Laughter.]

There seems to be laughter on my Front Bench. I am not laughing about the possibilities. I know Scotland better than most of my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench. I have had a longer connection with Scotland than any of them—even the Secretary of State. I spoke in his constituency nearly 60 years ago—before he was born. I am not saying that my appearance in Kil-marnock led to his birth—it had nothing to do with it.

Therefore, I understand Scotland and its emotions and what its people feel about nationalism. I think it is a lot of poppycock. I would give them, instead, some autonomy, but no more than that —but that is another subject. Now, the Government add to the trouble by disbanding the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Where do most of the recruits come from? From Glasgow—

Mr. Ross

Hear, hear.

Mr. Shinwell

The Secretary of State agrees with me. Of course they are not Highlanders. The right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) need not deceive himself. He thinks that they come from South Uist and Lewis and the Hebrides and Stornoway: they do nothing of the sort. Most of the Highlanders join the Glasgow police. Most of the Argylls come from Glasgow. I know something about this, because members of my family joined Scottish regiments a long time ago and took part in the First World War. I do not suggest there is anything wrong with the Argylls because most of them come from Glasgow, in view of what is happening there at present. It is better to have soldiers who are a bit ruthless and tough.

Mention was made about how men are recruited for various regiments. Take the English regiments. Where did most of the recruits come from in the past? They came from Ireland. England got most of her soldiers and generals from Ireland. I am giving the Government information on matters of which they should be aware.

I am sorry if I appear to have been getting worked up about this matter. I want to protect the Government by suggesting that they should not do something which is unnecessary. It is a stupid intervention at this time. Let us wait until we discuss the whole subject of the defence of the United Kingdom and I will then have something to say. In the meantime, this brief intervention indicates that I am in some political difficulty. As I ventured to say on a previous occasion when we had a very important debate, I will not vote with the Tories. I never did a thing like that before and I will not start now at my time of life. I cannot vote with the Government, so I will just stay away.

Mr. Boyden

I know that my right hon. Friend is a very good friend of the soldier. This was his reputation in the War Office. But does my right hon. Friend not think that the soldiers affected by defence cuts ought to have a reasonably clear idea where their future lies, and so on?

Mr. Shinwell

If I am asked that question, of course, nobody has a higher respect for the men in the forces than I because of what has happened in the past. I know there are some who do not care much about defence, but I have always believed that some defence is necessary. We have to provide the people with a feeling of security. Even if it does not exist, we have to associate the idea of security with a defence organisation. I have a high respect for the men in the forces, but, if we are to have defence cuts, and cuts may be necessary in future, I want to see the whole panorama of our military future presented before me before I can come to a decision. The time has not yet arrived, and that is the purpose of my remarks. Incidentally, I had not the slightest intention of speaking. I merely wanted to say that I will not vote either way. But, in view of what has been said, I have offered a few observations, of which I hope the Government will take note.

5.14 p.m.

Mr. George Younger (Ayr)

I have been dreading this debate for many months. I think many hon. Members have felt that this was coming. Now that it has come, I am glad that we have the opportunity today to put to the Minister and the Government what I believe is a first-class factual down-to-earth reason why this is a very bad decision.

I was grateful to the Minister for the way he spoke this afternoon, but I put it to him that he has not begun to appreciate why this decision has caused such terrible dismay throughout Scotland. If the Minister and everyone else in Whitehall will listen carefully for a moment why this is so, I believe they will be doing themselves a good turn and they will certainly be doing the Army a good turn.

I fully appreciate and support what has been said about the long traditions of these regiments, their exploits in the past, and the fact that on many occasions they have tipped the scales when this country has had its back to the wall. I will leave that part of the argument out of the reckoning in what I have to say. Although it is important, it is not the main point I want to put to the Government. I believe that it is most important for the Government to realise that the solid practical reason for not abolishing regiments such as this is something of which the Army ought to be well aware.

There are two main criteria which the Army of the present and of the future, will need. First it will need regiments of front line troops of one sort or another which have the morale, the skill, the efficiency and the capacity to stand up to any task they are given at short notice, and often in very difficult conditions. The second requirement is that our Army of the future must have sufficiently good morale and support from the civilian population to get sufficient recruits without the necessity of conscription.

Those are two aims which I am sure no one on either side will dispute. I believe that the abolition of the most successful of the Scottish regiments at the moment is directly contrary to both these aims and I will explain why.

I will take the second of these aims first namely, the need to recruit. Mention has already been made that the Government are seriously worried about the present recruiting situation, and well they might be. The shortfall in the recruiting required by the Government is of the order of 25 per cent. less than they know they need to keep the strength of the Army for what they are planning. That leaves out of account the argument that I would put at another time that the proposed scale of the Army will in any case be too small for what the Government will need to do with it. However, that is for another debate. I believe that the shortfall in recruiting is serious and will result in the Government not being able to keep the Army at the size they want in the years to come.

Let us look at the picture of recruiting as it affects the Scottish regiments. The Scottish regiments have consistently been among the better recruited divisions of the Army—I am not saying the best, but they have on occasions been the best— because they have a close link with the people of Scotland. When their recruiting is compared with that of the Army as a whole, I would point out that it has been something of a speciality for the Scots to provide infantry. Traditionally, the infantry has created the greatest connection with the Scottish people. That is why we have a relatively high proportion or regiments with famous names. I do not accept that it would be reasonable for the Scottish infantry regiments to be cut down to a figure of 8 or 10 per cent. of the whole Army. This is purely unrealistic, because the Scottish contribution to the infantry has always been relatively higher than the Scottish contribution of population to Britain as a whole. Therefore, I suggest that this is not a reasonable proposition to advance.

The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders are currently providing at least a third of the recruits for the Scottish Division as a whole and about half the recruits for the four present Highland regiments. If we abolish them, we threaten about half the recruiting in Highland regiments and about a third in Scottish regiments as a whole.

What conceivable sense is there in that at a time when full-page advertisements are being taken in the newspapers with all kinds of glossy pictures and wonderful wordings by the advertising men to get recruits into the Army? What do the Government do? They select for dis-bandment the one regiment which is getting the lion's share of the recruits at the moment. It is an absolutely incomprehensible decision. This is what has been found so difficult to put across to the people of Scotland as a whole.

We had a statement the other day by the Secretary of State for Defence that 80 per cent. of recruits to the Army did not mention any regiment. I will not dispute that figure. The right hon. Gentleman ought to know, as he is in charge of the Department. But has he not realised that to quote a. figure for the Army as a whole for the country as a whole and then slavishly apply it to the individual case of Scottish regiments is to make a mistake that is made time and time again, year in and year out, of taking a national average and automatically assuming that it affects Scotland just the same as anywhere else. Nothing causes more resentment than that somebody sitting in an office in Whitehall assumes that everything is a pattern. It is not a pattern.

I can tell the Minister from my experience and that of people to whom I have spoken that the vast majority—I put it no higher—of people who join the Highland regiments request to join a particular regiment. A figure of 90 per cent. was quoted by General Graham, who should know. He sees personally every recruit to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Ninety per cent. of them state that they come from the regimental area and want to join the regiment, and 60 per cent., or nearly two-thirds of them, come because they have a close friend or relative in the regiment who has told them that it is a good thing to be in. Those are the facts from people who deal with these matters. I beg the Government to think again, to look behind the figures and to see these patterns which occur behind the figures.

Before I leave the question of recruiting, I should like to ask whether the Government have ever done what is often done in industry—that is, some form of motivational research, scientifically conducted, to find out what makes people join the infantry. I ask the Government to reflect on the sort of job that an infantryman has to do. In many cases the infantryman does not have the carrot of learning a trade—becoming, for example, a vehicle mechanic—as in the technical trades or becoming a scientist and acquiring a skill which may last him in later life when he leaves the Army. The infantryman is the maid-of-all-work of the Army and his skill is his morale and his ability to stand together in impossible situations.

That is why I come on to the excellent remarks of the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) when he touched on the question of regiments and the regimental system. This is not a game of playing soldiers. The reason for the regimental system is that it works. It enables people to withstand situations that are impossible for human flesh and blood to stand. The fact that the men know that they have to live the rest of their military careers with the same people, and have to go back to their home areas where everyone will know what their conduct has been, is the sort of factor which enables them to withstand more than reason could expect them to do.

That is one of the reasons why the British Army is the envy of other armies all over the world. It is not an accident. We are not a military nation. Most of us in this nation do not like militarism. We hate wars and we would gladly do without them. The reason why the British Army, in a non-military nation, has been so outstandingly successful in this respect is because we have the regimental system, which binds men together in situations of danger. If any proof of that is needed, let the Minister reflect that almost every other army would give an awful lot to have a system like our regimental system. Very few people would deny that.

I should like to say a brief word on the second of the main necessities which our modern Army will need—that is, units of the highest efficiency and skill. This is no longer a question of square-bashing, of marching and countermarching on squares. The task of the modern infantry soldier is an infinitely skilled one.

There is no possibility of getting together 600 men and three weeks or three months later having a first-class battalion. A first class battalion takes years to build up. It requires mutual confidence between officers and other ranks, between non-commissioned officers and other ranks and between the whole personnel of a unit. One cannot build up a unit without years of hard work.

The Argylls, partly through circumstance and partly through the first-class quality of the men and their officers, have over many years built up the standard of efficiency of the battalions to something that is quite outstanding in the British Army. I do not make the claim that they are the best battalion in the British Army, although there are many who would. I do claim that they are one of the most outstandingly well-trained units that the Government have in the Army. That is one of the main reasons why the people of Scotland are absolutely unable to understand why this regiment has been chosen at this time to be abolished. I beg the Government to realise that they are up against an impossible task of explanation if they are trying to persuade the people of Scotland that it can be right for the best and most famous regiment to be abolished in this way.

I should like to make a final point. This is where I move away from the interests of the Army to ask the Government to consider public opinion in Scotland. I believe that the country as a whole—this will probably not be in dispute between the two sides of the House —has had a very difficult time in the last few years. A lot of things have gone wrong—and I am not here apportioning blame. We have had troubles in our economy and with our exports and things have gone wrong left, right and centre.

When one looks back, surely one of the things which shines out in the minds of ordinary people as having been successful and having been well done has been the conduct of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, particularly in Aden. People were able to open their newspapers and say, "Well, somebody is doing a good job. Something is successful. We cannot be entirely unsuccessful in everything all the time." When there is that sort of feeling people are glad suddenly to find something to cheer them.

Within a few months, however, the Government select the very people who, through years of work, courage, industry and everything else, were responsible for producing that one glimmer of sunshine in years of hard graft. That is the regiment that the Government have decided to disband and abolish. Can they be surprised that the people of Scotland are raging mad about it?

5.27 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)

I can understand the sentiments, emotions and feelings of hon. and gallant Members who are taking part in the debate, but when they say that they speak for the great majority of the people of Scotland they are labouring under a delusion. I know that there is a Press campaign about this matter in which every kind of national, sentimental and patriotic emotion has been exploited for political and party purposes, but I do not think that there is any great amount of criticism of the Government by ordinary people because a number of ex-officers have worked themselves up to this mood of prefabricated indignation.

We have had all this before. I remember 1957. In 1957 we had cuts by a Conservative Government. My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) has recalled that there have been many different former Defence Ministers. One of them came in to the debate for a short time and drifted out. That was the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys). I remember the drastic cuts that were imposed in what was called the Sandys White Paper of 1957.

At that time the then Prime Minister, Mr. Harold Macmillan, made a television broadcast in which he committed himself and his party to a drastic reduction in defence expenditure irrespective of tradition and vested interests. I believe that the hon. Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Sir F. Maclean) protested at the time. The right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble), I believe in 1957, was a Scottish Whip and he will recall that there was no outbreak of indignation then among Conservative Members of Parliament, except for a few old soldiers like Brigadier Prior-Palmer and soldiers of the First and Second World Wars.

Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison (Edinburgh, South)

If I may correct the hon. Member, my right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) was not then, in 1957, in Parliament, so he could not have been a Whip.

Mr. Hughes

I do not remember exactly whether he arrived here in 1957, but I do not remember any kind of protest from the right hon. Member for Argyll when many Scottish regiments were disbanded as a result of the defence policy of the Macmillan Government.

Mr. Gordon Campbell (Moray and Nairn)

Again the hon. Member is quite wrong. Those were not disbandments; they were amalgamations.

Mr. Hughes

They were put out of action, anyway.

This time what the Conservatives are saying is, to me, sheer political hypocrisy. I remember when Winston Churchill decided to come out of the Suez base. We had the Suez Group attacking that policy of the Tory Government when the then Government realised they had to reduce expenditure, during a time of financial crisis; and they were assailed by the Suez Group, and Winston Churchill said we had to be realistic and we could not stay in Suez without staying in Egypt. This controversy about the regiments did not start when the present Government came in.

I have been corrected about the right hon. Member for Argyll, but he has come in for criticism in the Scottish Press. I have here a letter from a correspondent in The Scotsman who recalls that when the right hon. Member for Argyll was asked for his comment on the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders' disbandment he said that when he first saw the news of that his comment was unprintable. Well, he was not unprintable today. At least, he was audible. But a lady writing in reply made the point, "Was he so indignant when the other Scottish regiments were disbanded?".

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has mentioned them. What about the Ayrshire regiment? We have just heard a speech from the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) and one would think that Ayr was seething with indignation about the disbanding of the Argyll and Sutherland Regiment. Pure nonsense. Absolute, sentimental poppycock. What is the position in Ayr? I am very glad to say that recruiting figures in Ayrshire are going down. In Ayr they have had to do away with the Churchill Barracks. That sacred cow has been executed. There is no Churchill Barracks in Ayr. Why? Because they cannot get the recruits. The Government have faced this position: if there are no recruits then the sensible thing is to disband the regiment.

Mr. Younger

Is the hon. Member not aware that the Scots Greys are the best recruited regiment in the Army and recruited mainly in Ayrshire?

Mr. Hughes

They did not live in Churchill Barracks in Ayr, anyway.

Mr. Ross

There is no Churchill Barracks. It is a fairground.

Mr. Hughes

Well, I think that is an improvement. I would rather see a fairground there than the Churchill Barracks, which was an absolute eyesore. If there were this enthusiasm for the Scottish regiments, and the sentimental glamour of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, then if the recruiting figures were going up, that would be a sign of there being something behind it; but the recruiting figures are not going up; they are going down.

I made one interjection about unemployment. I know there is this controversy; there has been some controversy in recent years that when the unemployment figures go up, recruiting goes up, too, and I understand that this has been challenged by some Departmental Committee, but I know why so many people joined the Argyll and Sutherland Regiment in the past, and the reason was poverty. Not of the officers, but the great Highland counties were poor counties, counties where ordinary people had nothing else to do but go into the Army. It was not because they were hot-beds of patriotism at all. It was simply because they had to go in the Army or starve. When we hear about the glorious history of Scotland it is as well to recall these facts.

I believe this problem is with us. I believe that when economic prosperity returns to the Highlands—and I am sure there are signs of its beginning, as a result of this Government's redevelopment policy—it will be more and more difficult for the Army to get its recruits, simply because the people there will get jobs, they will get better wages, they will be able to live with their families, and they would prefer to be in some kind of settled occupation at a reasonable wage to being in the Army.

Mr. Brewis

Can the hon. Gentleman explain then why the young men in Ayrshire are joining the Ayrshire Yeomanry and paying their own money to go to Territorial camp?

Mr. Hughes

It is quite true that Opposition leaders made a big fuss about the disbanding of the Ayrshire Yeomanry, but I receive letters, too. I received two letters, one from an officer whose name was so undecipherable I could not understand it, and the other from a colonel who did not know that I represent South Ayrshire and who lives in the constituency of the hon. Member for Ayr. I thought one of the letters came from an illiterate, because I could not understand his writing. The other came from somebody who did not understand anything at all, except that this small clique of Yeomanry officers were not going to have social opportunities which they had had in the past. There is no outbreak at all of any real indignation because the Ayrshire Yeomanry were disbanded.

What I say is that if these gentlemen want to carry on, paying their own expenses, I have no objection to their operating in a voluntary capacity, and the hon. Member has just given another illustration of this completely bogus agitation, which is not based on the feelings of ordinary people at all.

Mr. Younger

I do not want to break the hon. Member's heart, but perhaps he is not aware that the Ayrshire Yeomanry have not been disbanded and have no intention of being disbanded and are very much alive and kicking.

Mr. Hughes

I apologise if I used the word "disbanded", but they are not going to operate with Government finance, and if they are carrying on their avocation without asking us for any money, I have no more objection to that than I have to the Boy Scouts or the Boys' Brigade.

We are living in an age when people are asking, what are we going into the Army for? Whom are we going to fight? Is Scotland in any danger of being invaded? I remember the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) speaking on Moscow radio, when he said that we must not only co-exist with the Russians but co-operate with them Yet the assumption in all these debates is that we must have a big Army, or a big reserve Army, because at some time or other we have to fight the Russians. I do not believe that that is a sensible argument, or that, in any case, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders are relevant to it. People ask, "In these days, what is the Army for?" We get no satisfactory answer, but the answer will be the dilemma and the problem of Ministers of Defence.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Easington brought a touch of realism into this debate. He pointed out that these romantic regiments were recruited from what are called the Glasgow "keelies." He said that they were tough people. I am told that they made the best fighting soldiers but that unfortunately some of them had not forgotten their old habits.

I would prefer to see potential recruits to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and to the Highlands and Lowlands regiments going to the police. That is where they are needed at the present time. The trouble in Glasgow at present is not that the security of its citizens is menaced by the Russians. The Russians do not go out at night smashing people on the head, collecting in gangs and using razors. It is the civil population. I am therefore delighted when I find that fewer people are going into the old regiments, because some of them may drift into the police force and so help to tackle crime in Glasgow.

I am not making a romantic speech, and my sentiments will probably not be endorsed by any hon. Member opposite—

Mr. Edward M. Taylor (Glasgow, Cathcart)

Has the hon. Gentleman received any messages of support from Czechoslovakia for the argument he now puts forward?

Mr. Hughes

I am reminded that this is on'y a three-hour debate—

Mr. Edward M. Taylor rose—

Mr. Hughes:

Leave it alone—I am coming to my peroration.

The right hon. Member for Easington pointed out that some of the greatest soldiers have been Irish. That is true. It was the Duke of Wellington who said, "Sir, the military profession is a damnable profession." I believe there to be a general realisation that there is no great future for the old kind of Army, and I am glad to see that the Government are doing something sensible and are facing the fact that the Army's numbers will be reduced. I hope that the time will come when the numbers in the Army will be smaller than the numbers in the police force.

5.44 p.m.

Miss Harvie Anderson (Renfrew, East)

I think that hon. Members opposite are in some confusion about the state of our defences, but there has been no shining light of clarity in their contribution.

It is inevitable that this debate should range far more widely than over the one part of the Defence White Paper upon which I intend to speak. I do not think that it really matters where the recruits come from. Of course, recruits to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders come from Argyll, they also come from Renfrew and Stirling, from Clackmannan and Kinross, and from among the Glasgow "keelies", of whom I am one, as are the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) and many hon. Members. We are now studying the effect on a nation to which we are all proud to belong of disbanding a great regiment. I extend my remarks to point out that the widespread dismay is occasioned by the fact that the White Paper makes plain to all thinking people that the Government have once again struck at the defences of the country, and are again illustrating that our defences are now falling below the strength that many people regard as necessary for the safety of this island today.

It is true that we have a professional Army. Anyone who, like myself, was fortunate enough recently to go on a delegation to the B.A.O.R. recognises that we have a highly trained, highly skilled, professional and well-equipped Army, but, for those qualities that are necessary to make the Army what it is, the men and the units are still dependent on the basic requirements of morale, discipline and recruiting. Who in this Chamber would dare analyse what morale really is? Who is prepared to describe precisely what it is that creates the conditions in men and in units which my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) has mentioned? If an army or a unit is to achieve the badge of distinction in its rôle, it is for all of us to accept that the two qualities I have mentioned, plus recruiting, are necessary.

The first quality required is morale, so I see in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders the indefinable quality that is required above all else in any fighting unit. There is also the follow-on of the discipline of the men and of the unit, and the relationship between the various ranks and those who have formerly served in the unit, which builds up this indescribable force.

There are other things. There is the discipline, and within the discipline I count a career structure. I do not think that a man can have confidence in his career and be expected to be a professional highly-trained soldier—or any other Service man—unless he is reasonably sure of the security of his employment. If the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) and I agree on no other point, perhaps we can agree that security of employment is today as essential to a soldier as to any other person in the community.

The Minister has told us that jobs are being found for those who were affected when the Cameronians disbanded, but does he not realise that some of those jobs were in the ranks of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders? How does he think these men feel today. What prospect does he suggest is being offered to men who have joined a regiment with which they had no ties only to find that unit disbanded two months later? What is the prospect of those men for the next 10 years? It is not at all surprising that the recruiting figures are affected. We cannot conceivably imagine any men wittingly taking on a job whose future they doubt in view of the experience of their friends in having to change their jobs twice in two months. That is not on for recruiting.

If, as I and countless other Scots believe, there are within the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders those qualities necessary for the best in the British Army, has serious consideration been given to the retention of their identity in another form, such as a parachute regiment? It has been said in another place, by someone who knows much more about these things than I do, that this should be a practical solution. I should like to see it looked into, even at this stage, as a practical possibility. Goodness knows, in Scotland we produced from the Highland Light Infantry in time of war as good a parachute battalion as there is in the British Army and very proud they were of their tartan trews. I cannot see why this solution should not be applied to this proposed disbandment.

Mention has been made of recruiting and the apparently new idea that recruiting is not so closely tied to employment as the hon. Member for South Ayrshire thinks. So far as I have been able to discover, over two centuries at least the proportion of the population in Scotland who have sought to join the Regular Army has been just about constant. Therefore, I think it quite right to accept the view that the proportion of the population who wish to serve in the Regular Forces in Scotland is a constant figure, considerably higher than the proportion from any other part of the United Kingdom.

I understand that today the Royal Scots Greys consist 93 per cent. of Scots. In the event of disbandment, as it is the only Scots cavalry regiment, the men would have to go to English, Welsh or Irish units. We may have views about where Scotland stands, but most of us want Scots people to have a Scots regiment to join. I hope that the English Ministers appreciate the strength of feeling there is in that respect. This is a decision affecting not only the Argylls but one weakening yet again the defences of this country and destroying that part of the very spirit on which we depend when ill times befall us.

5.54 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (West Lothian)

Aware that what I am going to say will cause anger, some bitter resentment and some rather brutal hurt, I regret, to cherished personal feelings, I should like the House to be clear about what is not in dispute. It is not in dispute that the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the Scots Greys have given remarkable service to this country in two world wars. It is not in dispute that in a number of exceedingly unpleasant campaigns, such as the Greys had in Palestine in the late 1930s and the Argylls in many campaigns, such as the Indian Mutiny and the Siege of Lucknow, there have been many feats of considerable personal heroism displayed by individuals in those regiments.

The four issues I raise arise out of the serious speeches by the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) and by the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger), whom I listen to with great respect in these matters, and from what he has been saying in the Press and in his speech this afternoon. Any contempt I have is reserved for representatives of the Scottish Nationalist Party. Dr. McIntyre, Provost of Stirling, says "Keep the Argylls" but other Scottish Nationalists want most defence costs to be abolished. This is a wholly contemptible attitude of having one's cake and eating it, for which I have no time.

The issues I raise, following the debate, and in particular, the speech of the hon. Member for Ayr, are, first, whether there is a credible operational requirement; secondly, whether the effect on recruiting will be adverse and if so to what extent this matters; thirdly, the whole question of cost; and fourthly, the question whether the cuts are unfair to Scotland. On the question of a credible operational requirement, of course if we take the view of Sir Gordon Macmillan that there has been a mistaken defence policy and that we should remain in Singapore, it probably follows from that basic assumption that we should keep the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. I do not find it adequate for the hon. Member for Ayr to say that of course there may be tasks to be performed at short notice. We must be very open about this. I trust that this or any future British Government will not take those kind of "tasks at short notice" outside N.A.T.O. and the United Nations.

It is up to the Opposition to be a little clearer about their attitude. I have not got the script, but I listened to what the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) said on Thursday night on the radio about these defence cuts. I may have got him wrong, but I understood the right hon. Gentleman to make it pretty clear that he was not going to endorse any kind of a pledge that, should a Conservative Government be elected, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders or any other particular regiment would be restored. He is a canny politician and also an ex-Chancellor. Having seen him in the House this afternoon—not personally, but having seen him present—I find it a little strange that the right hon. Gentleman has not appeared at any time during this debate. My guess would be that, foreseeing man as he is in many ways, he will not want to be seen to commit himself to this kind of Motion.

Basically, I accept the assumptions of the Defence White Papers. I should have thought that if the Scots Greys have a contribution, either as an armoured regiment or an armoured engineering regiment, to make to N.A.T.O., they should be kept. Otherwise they should not be kept. The same goes for the United Nations balanced force. I hope that any contribution we make to a United Nations force will be no greater than a proportional contribution. Therefore, in this balanced force I do not think we can argue that there should be other than a decrease of infantry.

Then we come to the question of Aden. This is not the occasion on which one should talk of the politics of Aden, but I simply ask how this looks in retrospect. Was any great historic purpose served by those who laid down their lives in Aden? I went with Lloyd's Underwriters to Cairo to try and get the release the ships lodged in the Bitter Lakes. If one talks in the Arab world one find that our activities in Aden are mostly counter-productive. This is the view, not only of politicians of the Left, but of a great many British businessmen.

I had not intended to raise the question of Colonel Mitchell, but it was raised by the hon. Member for Argyll, and by the hon. Member for Ayr who made a central point about Colonel Mitchell and asked how we could do such a thing to his regiment. Colonel Mitchell was reported in the Daily Express to have said that one of the first Britons to land in Aden in 1827 started off by hanging the Mayor of Crater from the mast of his ship, and the colonel said: This is the right standard discipline in this sort of situation. I had to be tough. I think they were very glad to see me go. I simply remark that I do not want to be represented abroad in the Arab world by this kind of man. I think many young British people would feel the same way. I do not doubt that Colonel Mitchell is personally a brave man and I am not even saying, as many of my colleagues have said, perhaps rightly, that he is a publicity seeker. It may well have been that he used the title "Mad Mitch" in order to project a certain cause in which he believed. In any case, if we are to be critical of serving soldiers who air their opinions, let us not go for colonels. Let us go for generals and ask some rather detailed questions of General Sir John Hackett. If we are to criticise that kind of thing, let us go for the generals rather than for the colonels.

I am provoked by the hon. Member for Ayr to ask what, in fact, did happen in Aden. After brief reflection, I propose to use the privilege which is given to Members to say things in the House of Commons and to ask questions in the House of Commons which they might not do outside for fear of being brought to the courts. I should like to ask some pretty loaded questions, as the subject has been raised.

I ask my hon. Friend, is it or is it not true that Colonel Mitchell disobeyed administrative and operational orders in Aden given by his Brigade Commander, Brigadier Jeffries, and the Army Commander, Major-General Tower? Secondly, if Colonel Mitchell disobeyed orders, what was the reaction of the Commander-in-Chief? Did the Commander-in-Chief raise this matter with the Secretary of State for Defence? If Colonel Mitchell disobeyed orders, why was he not relieved of his command? For example, is it or is it not true that during the Aden operation an order was given that grenades were to be kept at regimental headquarters, and is it or is it not true that when an inspection was made by senior officers, grenades were found to be distributed among the platoons of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders? If that is true, why did it happen?

In the House of Commons it would be quite proper to give a categorical denial, if such is the case. I am asking the questions for the wider purpose since a claim has been made about their superiority to other units. What exactly happened in the progress into Crater? That was a tricky political operation. Is it true that the Colonel of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders disobeyed the time schedule of his orders? I had better be very blunt about it. Is it not true that the Argylls in Aden, far from being the superbly disciplined force which they were claimed to be by the British Press, in fact suffered from a lack of discipline? Is not that the actual truth of what happened?

Hon. Members

No.

Mr. Younger

Leaving that scandalous allegation aside, would the hon. Member, in the interest of fairness, record that once the Argylls had taken control in Crater there was a period of several months in which there was practically no incident, due to the fact that they had taken control, thus saving a great many lives?

Mr. Dalyell

That may be so, but it would be much better in Britain if we were to ask questions for the truth and if the truth were to come out. There is one point on which the hon. Member and I could agree, and that is that rumour is extremely damaging. All I can promise the hon. Member is that I did not ask these questions lightly. But the whole issue of Colonel Mitchell has been raised so widely, and in this debate, and with me personally, that I think it legitimate to ask these questions.

Another question to ask is, are the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and their like, the infantry, essential to the defence of these Islands? I am not a pacifist. I am a fortress Britain man. I understand that there must be some Regular Forces. At the risk of incurring the wrath of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire, I remind him that in Tribune and other Left-wing journals I have advocated the British retention of Polaris, because it strikes me that when we are defending Britain, it is the Polaris nuclear capability which acts as a deterrent and no longer is it the famous infantry regiment, though some must be retained.

That brings me to the question of recruitment. I would say to the hon. Member for Ayr that if, as a young man, I were attending an interview with General Graham, I have a suspicion that I might say to him what I thought he wanted to hear. I do not take that evidence about a huge percentage wanting to join a particular "tribe" which he gave quite as seriously as he takes it. I feel that regimental identity is not a major factor compared with, for example, career structure. There is the evidence that the recruiting figures for the Royal Corps of Transport, which has never had any kind of regimental set-up, are extremely good. What matter for recruitment are the kind of bold schemes which my hon. Friend introduced in relation to linking serving officers, and I hope n.c.o.s, with industry when they come out of the Forces. The announcement of 9th July about a link between industry and serving soldiers is extremely good. That will matter to recruitment. The hon. Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Sir F. Maclean) said that it was important to get the right type of recruit. So it is. And the right type of recruit is a much more highly educated person than ever before in our history. I suspect that this kind of man, whom it is highly desirable that the Army should recruit, will not be attracted by what is loosely called the tribalism of the regiment about which we have heard this afternoon.

I do not want to go into detail, but the issue for recruitment is the rôle and the use to which the Forces are put. Without wanting to be immodest in any way, and simply to safeguard myself against charges of shirking the issue and not going into it, I refer to a Fabian pamphlet which I wrote with Andrew Wilson, Lady Kennet, Neville Brown, the defence correspondents, and my hon. Friend the Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Raymond Fletcher), which outlines how modern forces should be geared to civilian tasks when they are not being used for military purposes. That raises the whole question, very properly initiated by the hon. Lady the Member for Renfrew, East (Miss Harvie Anderson), when she spoke about a worth-while career in the Forces. That is very important. It is the problem which we must face, and the Government are facing it.

I turn to the question of cost and the rise in cost in the last five years. If Sir Gordon Macmillan was here, I would address him in another capacity, namely, in his capacity as former Chairman of the Cumbernauld Development Corporation, because as Chairman of that Development Corporation he was very properly crying out for more funds to do all sorts of extremely important things in Cumbernauld. There is a competition for resources in this nation, and we must face up to that problem.

I wish to ask about the rise in the cost of a unit. I am a member of the Select Committee on Science and Technology and, without mentioning any matters which might be privileged, I can say that we make visits and learn things and that one of the things which we have learned is the fantastic cost of even the orthodox equipment used for today's Army. For example, the simple range-finding equipment for guns, which used to be a very cheap and simple contraption, is now an electronic computer which costs £25,000 to put on a jeep. It is in that context that the Conservative Party must view their own commitments. Those who want to petition most against the disbanding of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders are also the most formidable lobby in the country for the reduction of taxation. It must be made clear that the Exchequer consequences of this kind of attitude are very considerable.

What is the cost of the Argylls? It would be interesting if some indication could be given of the cost of the regiment for a year, because I do not believe the right hon. Member for Argyll when he says it is not particularly expensive.

Mr. Noble

The hon. Gentleman has deep knowledge of defence matters, which he gains from the Select Committee. The only point I was making was that in my view they must be cheaper than the Parachute Battalion.

Mr. Dalyell

I take the point, but it is still not cheap.

I think that other comparisons have to be made. The proposal is to keep the Argyll and Sutherlands. This is proposed in a country which under-pays its nurses and its teachers, which does not build as many hospitals as it ought, and a country, moreover, which cannot apparently afford to go ahead with the developments in particle physics at C.E.R.N. and Culham. Yet are we to incur military expenditure for which there is no operational requirement?

An Hon. Member

It is the kind of Government that we have.

Mr. Dalyell

I do not think it is. I rather suspect that the right hon. Member for Barnet knows that my kind of argument is true or else, as a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, he would have been here today.

Fourthly, are we being unfair to Scotland? During my National Service I served with the Royal Hampshire Regiment. They have their precious traditions, just as the hon. Member for Ayr who served in Korea knows that the Gloucester have their traditions. Their traditions are as precious to them as those of the Argylls may be to us, and on the issue of tradition perhaps I might be forgiven a personal reference.

As some of my hon. Friends know, one of the regiments under discussion was founded in 1678 by an ancestor and namesake of mine, a man who was sent to the Tower of London, from which I am glad to reveal he escaped. I have had many letters from people saying that they are appalled that a descedent of his should publicly take my kind of attitude, but from all that we know about him he was a realist. He founded a troop of cavalry with a clear and definite operational requirement in his view, namely, to restrain the activities of some 17th century Scottish religious bigots. That was a clear operational requirement in his view, and I think that he would have been the first to be appalled at keeping regiments for which there was no operational requirement.

If his shade could be convinced by the Defence Secretary about the assumptions on which the White Paper is written and the operational need for the Greys, because it would all depend on the arguments used by the Defence Secretary, he would take a different view and keep the Greys. But failing that in the absence of a demonstration of operational requirement, even though he founded the Scots Greys, he would have been the first to move the closing order on them.

It is a question of realism and operational requirements. I am told in many letters that I am irresponsbile, that I am not fit to be a Scottish Member of Parliament, and that I am not fit to represent West Lothian, although I receive many letters of a contrary opinion. On this kind of issue it would be better if politicians spoke out and said what they really feel, because only in that way will some of us be able to drag what I believe to be a minority of our fellow countrymen into the realities of the late 1960s.

6.13 p.m.

Mr. James Davidson (Aberdeenshire, West)

I seem to be fated to follow controversial speeches by the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), and I hope that I shall be forgiven if I do not follow him, except in one respect: that I intend to say what I think.

I should like to make a constructive proposal, and if possible to draw a common sense line between emotion, tradition, and sentiment on the one hand, and manpower planning and cost on the other. The Minister will no doubt be relieved to know that I do not intend to make a long speech.

I probably have as much right as anybody here to be sentimental about Scottish regiments. For three generations and two wars members of my family served with the Cameron Highlanders, another with the Highland Light Infantry, and another with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Three of them never came back, and two of them were severely wounded. Hon. Members may think that that was a very good reason for joining the Navy, but my main reason for doing so was that it was the only way that I knew, at 13, of getting a tin hat and a Service respirator.

I was also among a group of Members who carried out a quiet campaign behind the scenes to see that the Gordon Highlanders were not one of the regiments which bit the dust. This was a group of Members representative of the three main parties in the House. While we are relieved that the Gordons are not one of the regiments to go, I am sorry that the Argylls are scheduled for disbandment. If they go, only the Gordons of the four regiments which I mentioned will remain, though I do not accept the inevitability of the disbandment of the Argyll and Sutherlands.

Perhaps I might try to put the position in perspective. The latest proposed cuts are the end of a long series of amalgamations begun in 1957 by the Tory Government. By 1961 the Army had been reduced by no fewer than 51 units of regiment and battalion size. In the light of that, the Tory Motion rings a little hollow. When I and my colleagues vote in the same Lobby as the Conservatives tonight, we shall be voting against the Government's policy of disbanding the Territorial Army and scrapping the Territorial tradition, against their policy of wasting great potential for recruitment and for service in civil emergency based on one of mankind's most powerful instruments. According to a book which I read recently, man's territorial instinct is even more powerful than his sexual instinct and that is saying something.

Before making a practical and constructive suggestion, perhaps I might remind the Minister of one or two facts of which he is probably well aware. One point has already been made. I am referring to this figure of 80 per cent. non-preference. The statement that 80 per cent. of recruits joining the Army do not claim one unit rather than another is not true, at least not of that part of Scotland where I live. I know it cannot be true, and I have that on good authority. This may be the average figure for the United Kingdom, but not for Scotland.

I propose to make against the statistical point which I made earlier, namely, that whereas Scotland has about one-eighth of the population of England, she has one-third as many Regular soldiers as England has.

Sir Cyril Osborne (Louth)

Is that so?

Mr. Davidson

Yes, that is an established fact, and I can produce the figures if the hon. Gentleman is interested in them.

Sir C. Osbome

No.

Mr. Davidson

England has a population of 44 million, with 46,000 Regular soldiers. Scotland, with a population of 5,200,000, has about 15,000 Regular infantry soldiers. The hon. Gentleman will therefore see that my figures are correct.

Against that is the fact that only 4 per cent. of the United Kingdom based Army, 11 per cent. of which is Scottish, is based on Scottish soil. In other words, one man per thousand of the male population in England is a Regular soldier, whereas for Scotland the figure is about 3 per thousand. I think the Minister should bear those figures very much in mind when final decisions are taken on the subject under discussion this evening.

Has the Minister calculated the value to trade and commerce of the Scottish regiments? I am not speaking idly. I was present in Bangkok at the Asian Trade Fair on British Day. The pipe band of the 1st Battalion Scots Guards was playing, and it attracted more attention and drew more people into that enormous display on that day than did any other event when other nationalities had their national days.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

Were they pipers?

Mr. Davidson

Yes. As a piper perhaps I might tell the hon. Gentleman that the 1st Battalion, Scots Guards are outstanding as pipers.

Perhaps I might also ask the Minister whether he has taken into account the adaptability of the Scottish Regiments.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

Even if they were not in uniform, is it not true that the people would still have gone to listen to the pipers?

Mr. Davidson

They would have been a great deal more comfortable if they had not been in uniform, because it was a sweltering hot day.

Has the Minister taken account of the extreme adaptability of Scottish soldiers? I was given an instance by a colonel the other day of how one unit, which I shall not name, was transformed into a para-troop unit, back into an infantry unit, then into something else, and back into an infantry unit again during action in France and Italy.

Has he taken into account the enormous financial savings that could be made —I say this without stating facts, but on very good authority—if a few of the planners were allowed to do a little less planning and weapons could be produced, when they must be produced—I am not a warmonger—without being modified, re-modified and modified again, so that the cost escalates from start to finish by perhaps 400 or 500 per cent.?

I am prepared to accept that there is a need to reduce the total strength of the Regular Army. The Army today is trained against a background of armoured weapons, nuclear weapons, and even, perhaps, chemical and biological weapons, and beneath the shadow of air power. Obviously, we cannot preserve, and do not want to preserve, the same ratios between infantry and other troops as the armies which fought at Minden, Waterloo and Mons. We accept this, but given the general defence context of today, the decision to abolish the regimental centres and identities in the absence of a reserve territorial force is very unwise in my view and that of my hon. Friends on the Liberal Bench.

I wish to end by making a constructive proposition, and I should be most grateful if the Minister would give it his serious consideration. I am certain that we need a national Territorial reserve, regionally-based, which could take over civil defence and activity in times of civil emergency. It could assume the role of the previous Territorial Army, but with perhaps a greater accent on training for guerilla warfare and activities of that sort. I draw the Minister's attention to what is going on in the West Country at present, where members of the populace are looting from scrap dumps. I hope that they will not fall prey to disease as a result. A Territorial unit on the scene could take charge and stop that sort of thing going on.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

So can the police.

Mr. Davidson

If there were more police, but the police are already there and have their hands full. The job is more suitable for a Territorial unit.

The redundant regimental centres could be used as headquarters for such a national Territorial reserve. Such a plan would obviously need to be very carefully devised. It might well be possible to retain a Regular company, or possibly a smaller unit of each of the famous Scottish regiments—and English regiments, but that is not what we are debating—regiments which have come through both world wars with such honour and distinction. Such depot units could have the function of training the territorial reserve, recruiting for both territorial and Regular battalions, maintaining the traditions and ceremonial, and providing the essential link between, for example, an Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Territorial reserve regiment with all the functions I have outlined and the Highland Brigade of Regular battalions which already exists.

I hope that the Minister will give this proposition very serious consideration. I believe that it would mean the retention of all that is best in the Scottish regiments. It would not be immensely expensive, and it would provide the type of reserve that I feel the country cannot afford to be without.

6.24 p.m.

Mr. Hector Monro (Dumfries)

I should like to make one or two comments in the two minutes remaining to back-benchers.

First, when the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) makes a speech such as he did, he should stay in the kitchen and take the heat that should be coming to him. He made a grossly improper speech and put forward heavily-loaded questions to the effect that the commanding officer of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in Aden had behaved quite improperly, and that his battalion had failed to do its duty. It is absolutely outrageous for any Scottish hon. Member to say that in the House. I hope that when he winds up the Minister will put the record straight. He knows, as we all do, that the regiment would welcome an inquiry on what happened in Aden. Then the record would be straight, and some other heads might roll, including that of the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Tarn Dalyell)— notwithstanding General Dalyell 200 years ago.

But today we have been debating what may be the demise of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and possibly the Scots Greys. All Scottish Members should be putting their backs into seeing that this does not happen, yet we had cries of "Hear, hear" from Members opposite, including the Secretary of State for Scotland, to every suggestion that these regiments might go. This is outrageous, and something the Scottish people will not forget when the Election comes. I am glad that, if at all possible, we shall retain the regiment if it has not been disbanded. I hope that every hon. Member will support the Motion in the Lobbies.

6.26 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Campbell (Moray and Nairn)

I must at the outset declare some interests. First, I was in the Regular Army until a German bullet put an end to that. As a Gunner commanding a Scottish battery in a Scottish division for most of the war and fighting alongside Scottish regiments, I feel well qualified to speak about them. Indeed my testimony is free of that suspicion of partiality which might be ascribed to me had I been a member of one of these regiments.

I am obliged to declare a further interest. I should probably not be alive and here today if the battalion of Highlanders with whom I made the assault crossing at the Elbe had not, after I was wounded, detailed a party to take me back speedily across the river for the necessary blood transfusions and penicillin. This is a personal debt which I must acknowledge.

In addition, most of us have family links with these regiments. Hon. Members who have spoken have made this clear. I make no apology for having started on a personal note because it is important that the Government should understand that in Scotland the regiments are closely connected not only with areas but with people and families. This is more so in Scotland than anywhere else in Britain. It is the secret of the good recruiting in Scotland, and it explains the tradition of soldiering as a career which is widely found in Scotland, and which has just been recorded in the figures given by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson). The regimental system has given British infantly a spirit and fighting strength which has carried it through unbearable situations, and has been, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) pointed out, the envy of other countries. This is not limited to Scotland. It also applies to English and Welsh regiments, but that system means more in Scotland and is more prized and precious there. To damage it in Scotland is to take serious risks with future recruiting, besides shattering a delicate mechanism.

The Government propose to disband the second battalion of the Scots Guards and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders as a regiment. In their White Paper they say that a regiment of the Royal Armoured Corps is to be nominated later—presumably for disbandment. If that later announcement were to be the Royal Scots Greys, this would mean an inordinate proportion of the cuts falling on Scottish regiments, and that would be intolerable.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) had an Adjournment debate on 2nd July, when he pointed out that the Greys were the only Scottish cavalry regiment, and spoke of their prowess. It was appropriate that he should raise this, as he is related to that Ensign Ewart of the Greys who captured a French Standard at Waterloo after the famous charge of the Greys.

I applaud the attendance at the debate of the four or five Scottish Labour Members who have been here throughout, though at least one of them was here in order to press for the abolition of most, if not all, of the Army. But where were the other 40 or so Scottish Labour Members? Why have they not been here during the debate? The hon. Gentlemen who are pointing have not been here during the whole of the debate. Others have, and I applaud that.

I am not suggesting that no reductions in the infantry have been necessary in the last 10 years. Our charge against the Government is that these latest proposals have been made necessary only by panic decisions to reduce Britain's commitments, and that these panic decisions have arisen from gross mismanagement of our economic affairs. The extraordinary changes in policy, apparently made necessary only for economic reasons, are recorded in the Government's own statements over the past two and a half years. In the White Paper of February, 1966 it was stated that, after far-reaching examination of the nation's defence needs in the next decade, it is in the Far East and Southern Asia that the greatest danger to peace may lie in the next decade, and I quote: We believe it is right that Britain should continue to maintain a military presence in this area. That was in February, 1966. In June, 1966 the Prime Minister was reported in the Press as warning that the world was too small for Britain to contract out and leave it to the Americans and Chinese, eye-ball to eye-ball, to confront each other. By the end of last year Ministers were swallowing these words and taking decisions to pull out of both South East Asia and the Persian Gulf. It was Labour mismanagement of the economy that forced the Government to take decisions which the Secretary of State for Defence admitted involved serious risks. Last week's White Paper made it clear that the reductions now proposed arise from those decisions. We must not be surprised if we lose hundreds of millions of pounds in trade in the Far East and Middle East as a result of these decisions, but I will not pursue those matters now.

This evening we are concerned that serious damage is being done to the defence forces of this country, and in particular to the infantry. This is another grave risk which we need not as a country have run.

The Under-Secretary reminded us of the amalgamations carried out a few years ago when the Conservative Party were in office. He then read an excerpt from the Daily Telegraph reporting that these amalgamations were acceptable. But they were not disbandments; they were amalgamations that even the newspapers were reporting were proving acceptable, though not necessarily in all cases. These were painful, but they were part of a reduction which could be seen to be necessary. I was especially interested in the amalgamation of the Sea-forth and Cameron Highlanders, regiments which I knew well. As could be foreseen, that amalgamation, though its necessity was regretted, was happily and successfully accomplished. The resulting new regiment, the Queen's Own Highlanders, was very soon distinguishing itself by its prompt and skilful action in Brunei. What the Under-Secretary read out confirmed the acceptance that those proposals at that time received, even though there were, naturally, considerable doubts and anxieties beforehand.

Last week's proposal was altogether different. It proposed the death of a highland regiment, the Argylls. To many of us in Scotland this is incredible; in fact, it seems impossible. Do the Government realise that they are proposing to abolish the original "thin red line"? I have been glad to note that in the last few days some of the Press have recalled this part of the Regiment's history.

Mr. Reynolds

The second battalion.

Mr. Campbell

The Minister says it is the second battalion. This is the point; there is only one battalion now. If he abolishes the one remaining battalion, the successor of the "thin red line", he is abolishing the "thin red line".

Mr. Reynolds

The hon. Gentleman will forgive me for intervening. He referred to the "thin red line"; he now claims that the second battalion is the successor to the "thin red line". I would accept that other battalions in the amalgamation could be the successors of the Argylls.

Mr. Campbell

I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should consult the Argylls and he would find that they are the "thin red line". I am glad that some of the Press recently have recalled this part of the Regiment's history, under Sir Colin Campbell, a sturdy Scottish soldier whose career spanned the Peninsular and Crimean Wars as well as the Indian Mutiny.

The hon. Lady the Member for Hamilton (Mrs. Ewing) has not been here during the whole of the debate, although she made a statement reported in the Scottish Press last Saturday which, in my opinion, was a shocking attempt to face both ways, for the Scottish National Party have adopted on this question an attitude entirely unrepresentative of Scottish opinion. At their annual conference last year they defeated by a huge majority a motion deploring disbandment of the Scottish regiments. Among the reasons given was that the regiments had been formed by London Governments to hold down the Scots and to build the so-called British Empire. Although this is the fundamentalist attitude previously taken by S.N.P. leaders, 1 wish to make it clear beyond any doubt that these sentiments, together with the conference vote, are the exact opposite of the feelings of the majority of people in Scotland. I need hardly say that the S.N.P. conference in Aberdeen this year did not dare to raise the subject at all, and I can understand why the hon. Lady has decided to stay away from this debate.

I turn to the Argylls, which is the regiment now under threat. This regiment has done much in recent years, and last year the regiment pulled the chestnuts out of the fire for the Government in Aden by reoccupying Crater without a casualty. This was at an anxious time when several British lives had been lost and when there was a prospect of considerable further bloodshed on both sides. This is the kind of task, a task of international policing, at which the Scottish infantry have been superb. Before Aden that same battalion was for two and a half years in South-East Asia, for long periods of that time in Borneo, engaged in confrontation. I visited the battalion in South-East Asia a year and a half ago and in every headquarters I visited I heard how well they had done. This was before they went to Aden.

Incidentally, the Under-Secretary in his opening statement mentioned some of the operations in which the Argylls had been engaged since the war as if that were a complete list, but he did not mention Borneo or Cyprus.

Mr. Boyden

I was selective; I was not trying to be complete.

Mr. Campbell

The Argylls were in Cyprus and Borneo, as well as the Gordons. Before that they were in Korea.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr was himself with the Argylls in Korea, and they were engaged immediately in a desperate action in support of the United Nations where a posthumous Victoria Cross was awarded to them. They were then in Cyprus. Here they faced a very difficult situation. Not only was it made difficult by the invidious task of keeping order with two embattled communities on the island, but they also had to contend with visiting politicians. Here I refer to the right hon. Lady who is now Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity. She was widely reported in the Press as criticising the Argylls at that time, and when she held a Press Conference on her return it was reported in The Times of 23rd September, 1958; Mrs. Castle said that she stood by her comments on the rough handling by British troops when 'in hot pursuit.' … I believe it is wrong for detainees of various ages and conditions of health to be expected to stand the same treatment through drill or parades as tough, young Highland soldiers. I am glad that the right hon. Lady was rejected by the Government of that day in what she said and rejected by many of her hon. Friends. Incidentally, I gave notice to the right hon. Lady that I should be making reference to her in this debate. I hope that she had nothing to do with this decision, although she is a member of the Cabinet.

Now I come to the incredible speech by the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). It contained what I can only describe as shocking statements about the Argylls' conduct in Aden and that of their commanding officer, Colonel Mitchell, put in an interrogative form to the Government and asking for an inquiry. Fortunately, the Secretary of State for Defence has already assured my right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll —and he nodded his assent again today when the point was raised—that Colonel Mitchell's conduct was correct, and the right hon. Gentleman confirmed that he was an outstanding officer in his duties in Aden. If the Government decide to hold a special inquiry, we shall support them from this side of the House. We are sure this it would simply add further credit to the Argylls' record.

One of the reasons for the good recruiting of the Argylls is that in recent years they have been engaged in operations in which they have been successful and have been seen to be successful. Only last week, the Ministry of Defence held a Press conference pointing to the apparent paradox of a crisis in recruiting at the same time when severe reductions were being made in the infantry. However, it is no paradox. If the Army is truncated, it becomes less attractive. In a recruiting crisis, the worst and clumsiest action that a Government could take would be to kill off a regiment. This document is a death warrant, but, fortunately, it is one which can be rescinded.

If the Government understood that intangible but powerful force—the regimental spirit and its strength in Scotland —they would be acting differently. Instead of the expensive advertising in the Press which has been referred to, including photographs of self-conscious young officers with pipes leaning against mess mantelpieces surrounded by dogs, they would foster rather than destroy the regiment, which is the chief factor in infantry recruiting. They would then get more recruits less expensively.

In recent years, recruiting for the Scottish regiments has been outstanding compared with others. In have the most recent figures before me, and the Argylls' recruiting figures for 1967 and the first half of 1968 are better than those of any of the other Highland regiments. As I have said, no doubt part of the reason for that is the successful operations in which they have been engaged. What folly it is to throw away an asset like that.

Then I would draw attention to the many officers from Scottish regiments who have risen to high positions and occupy them today. This is not remarkable, because I know that this is where the tradition of soldiering enters in—as a profession of world peace-keeping besides the defence of Britain in times of grave emergency. I would refer only to the recently retired Chief of the General Staff, the top post in the Army, who was promoted to Field Marshal earlier this year. This latest Field Marshal is from a Highland regiment.

The infantry will continue to be needed for peace-keeping in disturbed areas, besides the defence of the free world. The situation in Cyprus today is an example of peace-keeping being needed. The British infantry at battalion and company level excels in the adaptability, tact and skill to do the right thing in dealing with local peoples, terrorism, and difficult political situations. This has been proved in Malaya, Borneo, Aden and elsewhere. In his interesting speech, the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) pointed out cogently the rôle played by the regimental spirit; and another outstanding quality of the British infantry is their dependability in extreme adversity.

What is it that keeps groups of ordinary men, not a carefully picked elite, hanging on and fighting back, though exhausted and decimated by casualties, running out of ammunition and supplies, knowing that plans have gone wrong because of enemy successes, outnumbered and surrounded, continuously shelled, in appalling conditions of cold or mud, and with no sign of help or relief? It is the feeling that their regiment will never crack—that the Argylls will not falter or fail in their allotted tasks. That is the key to the invincibility which wins the last and vital battle. Field Marshals Wavell and Montgomery and Sir Arthur Bryant have stated this plainly. Can we afford to throw away all this?

It was largely due to this that the Nazi jackboot never reached these shores and Hitler's pogroms were brought to an end. Those facts are too easily forgotten over 20 years later.

Now the Government are proposing to do what our enemies in two world wars could not, to obliterate the Argylls. However, the Government have not heard the last of this, because a petition is being started in Scotland which I can assure the Minister will gather strength from day to day.

Before the Minister accuses me of being a militarist, let me make it clear that a great deal of my work since the war, as a diplomat, was spent in working on disarmament and the peaceful settlement of disputes, including several years in our permanent delegation to the United Nations in its early days. That is why I am conscious of the continuing need for world police forces.

I repeat the undertaking given by my right hon. Friend at the beginning of the debate. The Conservatives will, if returned to office before the disbandment of the Argylls, seek to find a way of retaining their identity. However, we ask the Government to look again at the matter now, especially this shortsighted decision on the Argylls. If they persist and we are not able to reverse this decision, Ministers will be haunted for the rest of their lives when they hear the mourning music of the pipes. There are many sad tunes, laments and pibrochs, but there will be no sadder, not even "The Flowers of the Forest", than a composition that I can foresee, "Scotland's Lament for the Argylls".

6.49 p.m.

The Minister of Defence for Administration (Mr. G. W. Reynolds)

Frankly, I am a little surprised that we should have had this debate sorting out one infantry battalion from a considerable number of others that have been axed or brought to an end over the last 10 years. It is invidious for anyone in my position to have to defend the Government's attitudes which, inevitably, must appear to be denigrating one infantry battalion as against another. I have no intention of doing that, but I shall have to make one or two points to answer what we have heard from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite.

I have a very high regard for the Argylls. I visited them at Plymouth a few weeks ago after they returned from Aden. I was extremely impressed by their commanding officer and by the spirit shown by the regiment as a whole. I also remember having a pleasant and excellent lunch sitting by the side of the colonel of the regiment at the regimental headquarters; at Stirling Castle two short years ago, having seen the old standards of the battalion hanging in the regimental museum. One only has to do this to see with what sort of regard local communities look at battalions in Scotland.

But I must go on to say that local communities look at them—perhaps they are not quite so eager to express it in words—in a very similar way in the rest of the United Kingdom—in Ireland, in Wales and in England itself. There is no special problem of this nature in Scotland. Perhaps things are put more publicly into people's feelings in Scotland. But the love and respect given to a local battalion is common throughout the whole of the United Kingdom.

But today we are dealing mainly with one particular Scottish battalion. The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) said that in 1957 there were no cuts in infantry battalions in Scotland but that there were two mergers. That is true. But the basic decision then was that the number of infantry battalions in Scotland had to be reduced by two, and it was done by merging four battalions into two. That was apparently acceptable to the hon. Gentleman.

The decision that has been taken this time is also that two battalions should go from Scottish infantry regiments. One was announced a little while ago. It has already been disbanded at its own request. It felt that once the announcement had been made it was better for it to go quickly.

The other has now been announced, and we are debating it. But it does not necessarily have to be an actual disbandment, if that is what the hon. Gentleman is objecting to. We have no objection to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders merging with any other battalion in the Scottish Division that the regimental Colonels can agree upon. We took the decision of a reduction of one battalion in the Scottish Division having consulted those concerned—the colonels of the regiments and others—and it was they who expressed the point of view that it should be a disbandment rather than an amalgamation, and so we accepted that. But if they want to change their minds and provide for the amalgamation of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders with another regiment in the Scottish Division, we are prepared to accept it provided that the amalgamation can be one within the Division.

The Government have decided that as our commitments have been reduced we must reduce the Scottish Division by one battalion. How it is done is a matter primarily for agreement. The final decision rests with us, but we try to meet the wishes of the colonels of the regiments and the officers and men serving in them; and up to this moment they have decided that they would rather have a disbandment. That is how it is being done. As long as we finish up with one battalion less we are prepared to look at it if the desire exists among the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the other Scottish regiments. But there is no doubt about the fact that one battalion must go in the Highland Brigade in the time scale laid down in the White Paper.

Sir R. Cary (Manchester, Withington)

Following the debate, could the colonels be asked to reconsider the matter again?

Mr. Reynolds

They have already considered it and given their advice and we have accepted that advice. The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn thought that there was something wrong in disbanding a regiment, but he accepted that traditions were still carried on with amalgamation. The Government's decision is that one battalion in the Highland Brigade must go. If the colonels and all others concerned want to do it a different way, we are prepared to do it, but one battalion must go. The Government should not be blamed for deciding specifically that it is to be by disbandment rather than amalgamation. Amalgamation would cover the point as well as disbandment. One battalion must go. If the individuals concerned rethink the matter, there is pleny of time. We are talking about a disbandment to take place several years from now. If those concerned want it done a slightly different way, it is up to them.

Mr. George Brown (Belper)

I am puzzled. Who are the colonels? If the Government have decided that one battalion shall go, we shall all vote for that. But why does my right hon. Friend say that a group of men—I do not know who they are—whom he calls the colonels shall decide whether a regiment goes? Could he tell us who the colonels are?

Mr. Reynolds

They are the representative colonels, who are usually either the senior officer of the battalion still serving or, more likely, a retired officer of that battalion. They look after regimental interests. The Government's decision was that there must be a reduction of at least one battalion in that brigade. In our attempt to bring it about, we followed the normal method of consulting the regimental colonels. I can best explain this to my right hon. Friend by saying that it is almost akin to consulting the chairmen of the trade union branches concerned to find out what their views are before coming to a decision. We have had the consultation, and the decision has been taken.

Mr. George Brown

But the chairmen of the trade union branches are in office. The colonels are not.

Mr. Reynolds

They are in office as colonels of their regiments. It is an office which is actually there on the establishment at any particular time. We had consultations with them and took their views into account before saying that it would be a disbandment rather than an amalgamation of battalions in the regiment.

But in the White Paper just issued and in the White Paper issued last year we are dealing with 13 or 14 battalions which are to be disbanded over the next few years. We have heard a great deal today about the history of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. I could go through every one of the regiments in the British Army—the Lancashire Fusiliers, the Irish Fusiliers, the 4th Battalion the Queens, the 4th Battalion Royal Anglians—and without exception give a similar regimental history for each one. This is the difficulty that one has when one tries to take a particular regiment and make a case for its being exempted from any general reduction, because pretty well every regiment in the British Army can justly claim that it has a fine record over a long period. As with other organisations, their efficiency tends to go up and down over the years. At one time they are at the peak of success, but individuals move on and at other times they are not quite as efficient as they were before. So it would be unfair to try to decide which battalion should go solely on the basis of efficiency. We have looked at all methods of doing it; and we have been forced to the conclusion that, unless there are other real overriding factors, one has to look at the juniority of the regiment concerned. and it has been done on the basis of "last in, first out", which works in a number of other fields.

The hon. Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Sir F. Maclean) said that the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders was one of the most successful Scottish regiments over recruiting. He claimed that half the recruits to the Highland Brigade went to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. This sort of thing has been said so many times that I must look at the facts. Taking the Scottish Division as a whole, there is nothing to show that that Division recruits better than any other infantry division in the British Army. This is a myth that seems to have got about. There is nothing in it. No one can prove that the Scottish Division or the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders recruits any better than any other unit. It all depends on where one takes one's figures.

I would point out that between January and March this year the Army as a whole was recruited up to 1.3 per cent. below establishment. That is the figure for the Army as a whole over the whole of the United Kingdom. In the first quarter of this year the Scottish battalions about which we were talking were 7 per cent. below establishment, compared with 1.3 per cent. for the Army as a whole.

Sir F. Maclean

Will the right hon. Gentleman say how the recruiting figures for the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders compare with those for other regiments? It is not the Highland Brigade or the Scottish Division; it is the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

Mr. Reynolds

For several years, under arrangements brought into operation by right hon. Gentlemen opposite, recruits have gone to the brigade rather than an individual regiment. I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman trying to claim that the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders had been better than anyone else at recruiting in the last few months. I have the figures for the period 1st March to 1st June last. The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders got 32 new recruits, the Gordons 44 and the Highland Fusiliers 33. So the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders did no better and no worse than any other battalion in the Highland Brigade or the Scottish Division.

But most of these new recruits to all these battalions at present remaining in the Scottish Division were not brought in off the streets. They were men from the disbanded Cameronian Regiment transferred to other battalions in the Scottish Division in the main. Most of the recruits to the Scottish battalions over the last couple of months have come from that source, the Cameronian Regiment, which was disbanded, and this has now brought all the Scottish battalions up to establishment.

Mr. G. Campbell

The figures I have are different from those being given by the right hon. Gentleman. However, I cannot go into them now, but I will gladly do so later with him. The right hon. Gentleman mentions the first part of this year for his purpose but that is a very short period. In addition, the death of the Cameronians was about to happen. It is, therefore, a bad period to select as a picture of Scottish recruiting.

Mr. Reynolds

Quite so. One can take any period and show the figures in all sorts of ways—that is precisely what I was saying. The way in which figures have been bandied about today does not prove anything either to the credit or to the discredit of any regiment or Division. The figures prove nothing about the Scottish Division. They do not make it better or worse than any other infantry division of the British Army. But the recruiting myth has grown up and we must dispel it. We must have it established that Scottish recruiting is no better and no worse than the recruiting for any other good infantry battalions and divisions in the United Kingdom.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) said that he found difficulty in supporting the Government and that he would abstain. He said that the Government should bring out their policy for the future of our defence commitments and manpower before deciding on piecemeal cuts of bat- talions. But in July last year and January this year we brought out two White Papers spelling out our commitments and stating that there was to be a reduction of 75,000 in the uniformed manpower of the Services. This latest White Paper spells out how that reduction is to be brought about. It does not represent a change of policy but a working document arising from the major policy decisions of the last 12 months.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) asked a number of questions about the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders including some details which I cannot give him today. He asked about reports of differences of opinion which appeared in the Press about the recapture of Crater by the Argylls in the closing months in Aden. I want to make it clear that there was complete agreement between the military and civil authorities on the need to go back into Crater at that time. The Aden Brigade was ordered to enter it on 3rd July.

It was then far from certain that our Forces would not be bitterly opposed and it was, therefore, decided that only a limited penetration should be made with exploitation afterwards should it prove successful. From reconnaissance reports, the Commanding Officer of the 1st Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders was optimistic that a relatively deep penetration could be made. The agreed outlined plan was for the 1st Battalion of the Argylls to enter and advance in a series of phases, with a second battalion—in the event it was not required —in reserve and available to occupy the north-west of the town.

The Argylls were to enter by Marine Road and establish, by phases, a presence in the banking and business centre. Secondly, they were to exploit to the police station and control the central and southern parts of the town and then move towards the armed police barracks but avoid close contact with it.

After some slight initial opposition on 3rd July there was little further firing during the operation and at midnight the Brigadier-General (Staff) of Middle East Land Forces, accompanied by the Acting Commander of Aden Brigade, who was present with the Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion of the Argylls, personally ordered the Commanding Officer of the Battalion to exploit the speed and success of the initial thrusts, and the G.O.C. the following morning ordered the rest of the town to be taken over by 5 p.m. on 5th July.

The whole operation was carried out in accordance with the plan laid down and agreed between the civil and military authorities in Aden. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian has nothing to withdraw. He asked some important questions, and I am answering him. I am emphasising that the operation was carried out superbly by the battalion and also by the armoured cars. People have tended to forget the part played by the armoured cars because of the publicity given to the Argylls. I emphasise that the plan was drawn up in Aden and that it was carried out extremely well and was seen in a favourable light by public opinion here at the time.

Mr. Dalyell

Is this a clear statement that on every occasion Colonel Colin Mitchell of the Argylls accepted the orders of his brigade commander and of the Army Commander?

Mr. Reynolds

It is a clear statement that, so far as the re-entry of Crater is concerned, it was done in complete agreement on a plan worked out between the military and civil authorities of the area. Everything worked smoothly and the relations between all officers and units concerned were as they should have been.

I return to the main theme of the debate. We are being accused of treating Scotland unfairly. But, as my hon.

Friend the Under-Secretary of State said, Scotland, with 10 per cent. of the population, will have 16 per cent. of our infantry battalions in 1972 — seven battalions, instead of four, which is what Scotland would have had if a percentage basis had been chosen.

This battalion, the Argylls, was formerly the 91st Foot, formed in 1794, and the 93rd Foot, formed in 1799. It has been present at many battles. I met a former Pipe Major of the Argylls before the White Paper came out. He said that it would be unfair if there were any further amalgamation of the Argylls because, he said, "We have been amalgamated before". When I asked him when this had taken place, he replied that it was after Alma and Balaclava, when the 91st and the 93rd were amalgamated under the Cardwell reforms. That is true, but so has nearly every other regiment changed from numbers to names over a similar period.

I understand that the motto of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders is Ne obliviscaris. This is an injunction to people not to forget. It also has a positive meaning for people to remember. Whatever happens to this gallant regiment in this unfortunate time of cutting down the number of units, people will always remember the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

Question put:— That this House deplores the decision to abolish Scottish units announced in Command Paper No. 3701.

The House divided: Ayes 250, Noes 299.

Division No. 279.]	AYES	[7.6 p.m.
Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)	Braine, Bernard	Corfield, F. V.
Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)	Brewis, John	Costain, A. P.
Astor John	Brinton, Sir Tatton	Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Awdry Daniel	Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter	Crosthwaite-Eyre, Sir Oliver
Baker, Kenneth (Acton)	Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)	Crouch, David
Balniel, Lord	Bruce-Gardyne, J.	Crowder, F. P.
Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony	Bryan, Paul	Cunningham, Sir Knox
Batsford, Brian	Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M)	Currie, G. B. H.
Beamish, Col. Sir Tutton	Buck, Antony (Colchester)	Dalkeith, Earl of
Bell, Ronald	Bullus, Sir Eric	Dance, James
Bennett Sir Frederic (Torquay)	Burden, F. A.	Davidson, James (Aberdeenshire, W.)
Berry Hn. Anthony	Campbell, B. (Oldham, W.)	d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Biffen, John	Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)	Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.)
Biggs-Davison, John	Carlisle, Mark	Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)
Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel	Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert	Digby, Simon Wingfield
Black, Sir Cyril	Cary, Sir Robert	Dodds-Parker, Douglas
Blaker, Peter	Channon, H. P. G.	Donnelly, Desmond
Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)	Chichester-Clark, R.	Doughty, Charles
Body, Richard	Clark, Henry	Dougtas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec
Bossom, Sir Clive	Clegg, Walter	Drayson, G. B.
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John	Cooke, Robert	du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward
Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward	Cordle, John	Eden, Sir John
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Kitson, Timothy	Rees-Davies, W. R.
Emery, Peter	Knight, Mrs. Jill	Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David
Errington, Sir Eric	Lancaster, Col. C. C.	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Eyre, Reginald	Lane, David	Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
Farr, John	Langford-Holt, Sir John	Ridsdale, Julian
Fisher, Nigel	Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry	Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Robson Brown, Sir William
Fortescue, Tim	Lloyd, Rt. Hn.Geoffrey(Sut'nC'dfield)	Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)
Foster, Sir John	Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)	Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Fraser, Rt.Hn.Hugh(St'fford & Stone)	Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)	Royle, Anthony
Galbraith, Hn. T. G.	Longden, Gilbert	Russell, Sir Ronald
Giles, Rear-Adm, Morgan	Loveye, W. H.	St. John-Stevas, Norman
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)	Lubbock, Eric	Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.
Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)	McAdden, Sir Stephen	Scott, Nicholas
Glover, Sir Douglas	MacArthur, Ian	Scott-Hopkins, James
Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.	Mackenzie, Alasdair(Ross&Crom'ty)	Sharples, Richard
Goodhart, Philip	Maclean, Sir Fitzroy	Shaw, Michael (Se'b'gh & Whitby)
Goodhew, Victor	McMaster, Stanley	Silvester, Frederick
Cower, Raymond	Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)	Sinclair, Sir George
Grant, Anthony	Maddan, Martin	Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)
Gresham Cooke, R.	Maginnis, John E.	Speed, Keith
Grieve, Percy	Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest	Stainton, Keith
Griffiths, Eltlon (Bury St. Edmunds)	Marten, Neil	Steel, David (Roxburgh)
Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.	Mude, Angus	Stodart, Anthony
Gurden, Harold	Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald	Stoddart-Scott Col. Sir M. (Ripon)
Hall, John (Wycombe)	Mawby, Ray	Summers, Sir Spencer
Hall-Davies, A. G. F.	Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.	Tapsell, Peter
Hamilton, Lord (Fermanagh)	Mills, Peter (Torrington)	Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)	Mill, Stratton (Belfast, N.)	Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart)
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)	Miscampbell, Norman	Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)	Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)	Teeling, Sir William
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)	Montgomery, Fergus	Temple, John M.
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere	Morrison, Charles (Devizes)	Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Harvie Anderson, Miss	Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles	Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy
Hastings, Stephen	Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh	Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.
Hawkins, Paul	Murton, Oscar	Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.
Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel	Nabarro, Sir Gerald	van Straubenzee, W. R.
Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward	Neave, Airey	Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John
Heseltine, Michael	Nicholls, Sir Harmar	Vickers, Dame Joan
Higgins, Terence L.	Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael	Waddington, David
Hlley, Joseph	Nott John	Walker, Peter (Worcester)
Hill, J. E. B.	Onslow Cranley	Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek
Hirst, Geoffrey	Orr, Capt. L. P. S.	Wall, Patrick
Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin	Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian	Walters, Dennis
Holland, Philip	Osborn, John (Hallam)	Ward, Dame Irene
Hordern, Peter	Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)	Weatherill, Bernard
Hornby, Richard	Page, Graham (Crosby)	Wells, John (Maidstone)
Howell, David (Guildford)	Page, John (Harrow, W.)	Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William
Hunt, John	Pardoe, John	Williams, Donald (Dudley)
Hutchison, Michael Clark	Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)	Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)
Iremonger, T. L.	Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)	Peel, John	Winstanley, Dr. M. P.
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)	Percival, Ian	Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Jennings, J. C. (Burton)	Peyton, John	Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard
Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)	Pike, Miss Mervyn	Woodnutt, Mark
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)	Pink, R. Bonner	Worsley, Marcus
Jones, Arttiur (Northants, S.)	Pounder, Rafton	Wylie, N. R.
Jopling, Michael	Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch	Younger, Hn. George
Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith	Price, David (Eastleigh)
Kerby, Capt. Henry	Prior, J. M. L.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Kershaw, Anthony	Pym, Francis	Mr. R. W. Elliott and
Kimball, Marcus	Quennell, Miss J. M.	Mr. Jasper More.
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)	Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James
NOES
Abse, Leo	Bidwell, Sydney	Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Albu, Austen	Binns, John	Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)	Bishop, E. S.	Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James
Alldritt, Walter	Blackburn, F.	Cant, R. B.
Allen, Scholefield	Blenkinsop, Arthur	Carmichael, Neil
Anderson, Donald	Boardman, H. (Leigh)	Carter-Jones, Lewis
Archer, Peter	Booth, Albert	Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Armstrong, Ernest	Boston, Terence	Chapman, Donald
Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)	Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur	Coe, Denis
Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)	Boyden, James	Conlan, Bernard
Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice	Braddock, Mrs. E. M.	Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Bagier, Gordon A. T.	Bradley, Tom	Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Barnes, Michael	Bray, Dr. Jeremy	Cronin, John
Barnett, Joel	Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.	Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Baxter, William	Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)	Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Beaney, Alan	Brown, Bob(N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,W.)	Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Bence, Cyril	Buchan, Norman	Dalyell, Tam
Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)	Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)	Darling, Rt. Hn. George

Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)	Jackson, Colin (B'h'se & Spenb'gh)	Parker, John (Dagenham)
Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)	Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)	Parkin, Ben (Paddington, N.)
Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)	Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas	Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)
Davies, Ifor (Gower)	Jeger, George (Goole)	Pavitt, Laurence
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)	Jeger,Mrs.Lena(H'b'n & St.P'cras, S.)	Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey	Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)	Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Delargy, Hugh	Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)	Pentland, Norman
Dell, Edmund	Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)	perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)
Dempsey, James	Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)	Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)
Dewar, Donald	Judd, Frank	Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.
Diamond, Rt. Hn. John	Kelley, Richard	Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)
Dickens, James	Kenyon, Clifford	Price, Thomas (Westhoughton)
Dobson, Ray	Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter & Chatham)	Probert, Arthur
Doig, Peter	Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)	Pursey, Cmdr.Harry
Dunn, James A.	Kerr, Russell (Feltham)	Randall, Harry
	Lawson, George
Dunnett, Jack
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)	Leadbitter, Ted	Rankin, John
		Reynolds, Rt. Hn. G. W.
Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th & C''b'e)	Lee, Rt. Hn. Jennie (Cannock)	Richard, Ivor
Eadie, Alex	Lestor, Miss Joan	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Edelman, Maurice	Lever, Harold (Cheetham)	Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)	Lever, L.M.(Ardwick)	Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)
Ellis, John	Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)	Robertson, John (Paisley)
English, Michael	Linton Marcus	Robinson, Rt.Hn.Kenneth (St.P'c'as)
Ennals, David	Lomas Kenneth	Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow, E.)
Ensor, David	Loughlin, Charles	Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)	Luard, Evan	Roebuck, Roy
Evans, loan L. (Birm'h' m, Yardley)	Lyon, Alexander W. (York)	Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)
Faulds, Andrew	Lyon, Edward (Bradford, E.)	Ross, Rt. Hn. William
Fernyhough, E.	Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson	Ryan, John
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)	McCann, John	Shaw, Arnold (llford, S.)
Fletcher, Raymond (llkeston)	MaeColl, James	Sheldon, Robert
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)	MacDermot, Niall	Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)
Foley, Maurice	Macdonald, A. H.	Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)	McGuire, Michael	Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.)
Ford, Ben	McKay, Mrs. Margaret	Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)
Forrester, John	Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)	Silverman, Julius
Fowler, Gerry	Mackie, John	Skeffington, Arthur
Fraser, John (Norwood)	Mackintosh, John P.	Slater, Joseph
Freeson, Reginald	Maclennan, Robert	Small, William
Galpern, Sir Myer	McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)	Snow, Julian
Gardner, Tony	McNamara, J. Kevin	Spriggs, Leslie
Ginsburg, David	Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)	Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.	Mahon, Simon (Bootle)	Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John
Gourlay, Harry	Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)	Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.
Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)	Manuel, Archie	Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley
Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony	Marks, Kenneth	Swain, Thomas
Gregory, Arnold	Marquand, David	Swingler, Stephen
Grey, Charles (Durham)	Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard	Symonds, J. B.
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)	Maxwell, Robert	Taverne, Dick
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)	Mayhew, Christopher	Thomson, Rt. Hn. George
Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)	Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert	Thornton, Ernest
Griffiths, Will (Exchange)	Mendelson, J. J.	Tinn, James
Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.	Mikardo, lan	Tuck, Raphael
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)	Millan, Bruce	Urwin, T. W.
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)	Miller, Dr. M. S.	Varley, Eric G.
Hamling, William	Milne, Edward (Blyth)	Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)
Hannan, William	Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)	Wallace, George
Harper, Joseph	Molloy, William	Watkins, David (Consett)
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)	Moonman, Eric	Watkins, Tudor (Brecon & Radnor)
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith	Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)	Weitzman, David
Haseldine, Norman	Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)	Wellbeloved, James
Hattersley, Roy	Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)	Wells, William (walsall, N.)
Hazell, Bert	Morris, John (Aberavon)	Whitaker, Ben
Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis	Murray, Albert	White, Mrs, Eirene
Heffer, Eric S.	Neal, Harold	Whltlock, William
Henig, Stanley	Newens, Stan	Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret	Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)	Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)
Hilton, W. S.	Noel, Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)	Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)
Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town)	Norwood, Christopher	Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)
Hooley, Frank	Oakes, Gordon	Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Horner, John	O'Malley, Brain	Willis, Rt. Hn. George
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas	O' Malley, Brian	Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)
Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)	Oram, Albert E.	Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)
Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)	Orbach, Maurice	Winnick, David
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)	Orme, Stanley	Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.
Howie, W.	Oswald, Thomas	Woof, Robert
Hoy, James	Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)	Wyatt, Woodrow
Huckfield, Leslie	Owen, Will (Morpeth)	Yates, Victor
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)	Paget, R. T.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Hunter, Adam	Palmer, Arthur	Mr. Neil McBride and
Hynd, John	Panned, Rt. Hn. Charles	Mr. J. D. Concannon.
Irvine, Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)	Park, Trevor