At the SNP Conference in Inverness on Saturday, Angus Robertson MP unveiled startling new figures he has managed to extract from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) about military spending in Scotland.
He made the revelations whilst delivering the Scotland on Sunday lecture, organised and sponsored by Fleishman-Hillard. The lecture was delivered to a packed theatre, with SNP members and activists keen to hear the thoughts of the SNP’s leader at Westminster and party spokesperson for defence.
Scotland on Sunday/Fleishman-Hillard lecture at SNP Conference in Inverness.
He argued that defence policy in Scotland is full of myths about MoD spending north of the Border and that any review of defence policy in Britain had to admit to a much more uncomfortable reality.
Traditionally Scotland has been seen as being closely associated with the British military. Scotland has a historically strong relationship with the British Army, especially through service in the historic regiments of Scotland such as The Black Watch.
It is commonly assumed that a disproportionate number of people from Scotland serve in the armed forces, and likewise there was a heavy military presence in the country in terms of bases, weapons procurement and defence-related civilian jobs.
Mr Robertson challenged this assumption in his lecture. He revealed that the UK Government does not spend as much money per head of population in Scotland as it does in England, and that this situation has been getting much worse over the last few years under the Labour Government. The figures he has received from the MoD suggests that since 2002, there has been a shortfall of £4.3bn in military spending in Scotland, and that since 1997 9,500 defence jobs have been lost. He also repeatedly pointed out that Scotland now has a smaller number of soldiers than the Republic of Ireland, despite Ireland having a smaller population.
The traditional argument that Scotland gains from being in the UK because of extra jobs and higher military spending is therefore a myth, according to Mr Robertson. Under the forthcoming strategic review of British defence policy, the SNP will seek to argue that there must be a separate Scottish review.
There seems to be a new SNP policy emerging here. Any separate review of defence for Scotland would surely have to look at reversing this decline in jobs and military spending. So it follows that an independent Scotland would also increase the size of the armed forces as well as the amount of money spent on defence in Scotland. Could the SNP really be about to fight the next election on a platform of increasing military spending in Scotland? Mr Robertson’s lecture suggests that he thinks this should be the case.
With a closely fought General Election just seven months away this could be a new front in the battle between Labour and the SNP to represent Scotland in Westminster.
