Defence spending in Wales: the debate
Anyone suffering withdrawal symptoms a week after the last meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee could have eased those symptoms by attending this morning's debate in Westminster Hall on defence in Wales.
Labour MPs used the 90-minute debate to launch a concerted attack on the UK Government's decision to scrap the proposed defence training college in the Vale of Glamorgan.
The £14bn private finance project was scrapped as part of the strategic defence and security review despite previous cross-party support for a plan that would centralise technical training for the armed forces at St Athan.
Despite the previous Labour Government's commitment to the scheme - and spending around £100m of public money on it - delays of 18 months to two years meant contracts were never signed and the incoming coalition Government was able to scrap it.
Sian James, the Labour MP for Swansea East who sponsored the debate, compared that decision to recent vandalism of the cenotaph in St Athan.
Today's arguments were well-rehearsed, or "extraordinarily narrow and partisan" according to the Armed Forces Minister Andrew Robathan. He denied that his Government is anti-Welsh. ("Robathan is a Welsh name").
He even produced his family tree (great-grandfather a doctor in Risca, grandfather headteacher of Llandaff Cathedral School, other relatives served in the Welsh Guards).
Labour MPs complained that defence spending in Wales - at £390m a year - is below that of other parts of the UK.
The Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards introduced that showed a decline in defence jobs under Labour.
When Labour came to power in 1997 there were 3,330 service personnel and 5,100 civilian defence staff based in Wales. Those figures have now fallen to 2,930 and 1,970 respectively.
The Carmarthen East and Dinefwr MP said there were almost as many British service personnel based in Cyprus as there are in Wales - and seven times as many troops in Germany as in Wales.
Mr Robathan told the debate the Metrix project at St Athan was never going to be affordable but he said the base would still be considered for other training work.
Hello. I'm David Cornock and I'm parliamentary correspondent for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Wales. This is the blog for the latest news and gossip from the Westminster village - with a Welsh accent.
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