TNAG-0540-FCO40-635-Strength-of-garrison-in-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 178

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MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE EXPENDITURE COMMITTEE

11 February, 1975.] Mr. A. P. HOCKADAY, C.B., C.M.G.,

[Continued.

Rear Admiral A. S. MORTON, Mr. T. CULLEN, Mr. D. M. EVANS, Mr. G. C. B. DODDS, Mr. A. R. M. JAFFRAY, Mr. J. D. BRYARS and Mr. T. C. G. JAMES, C.M.G.

ments? This is linked with the pro- cess of the review of, the organisation and structure of the army that has been mentioned. But the Secretary of State made clear in his 3rd December state- ment that this would be carried out with the greatest possible regard to the regi- mental tradition, which I think most of us regard as a very great source of strength in the army. Broadly speaking the review of the army structure is con- cerned much more with implications in terms of chains of command and per- haps the number of different levels of functional command that you would have rather than towards a restructuring of the army in terms of a radical review of its regimental basis.

184. Are you saying a reduction of 12,000 can be made without merging, amalgamating or abolishing any regi- ments? -I could not at this stage say that it will be carried out without abolishing or merging any regiments, it is too early to say what the final out- come in that respect will be. But what I can say is that it is being carried out with the intention of keeping any such reductions or mergers to the minimum and if it is possible to carry out the manpower reductions and the review of the army's command organisation with- out any reductions or mergers, that is what the Government would wish to do.

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185. May I ask one simple question which I hope will get a simple answer: is it technically possible to reduce the army manpower by 12,000 without merg- ing, amalgamating or abolishing regiment?- -What I can say at this stage of the review is that it is tech- nically possible to carry out a reduction of this order with minimal effects of the kind which you describe. It may be that it can be done without any effects, but it is too early to say yet.

Sir Frederic Bennett.

186. I would like to come back to the Gurkhas with which I have had some connection. It has been forecast ever since we started to reduce, 15 to 13 to 11 to 10, that we could not probably long maintain the Gurkhas if we fell below each successive figure. May I ask

whether you are confident you can cut the remaining strength of the Gurkhas by what amounts to 20 per cent. and still guarantee that for the foreseeable future you can maintain a coherent Gurkha element? Yes, we are confident that on this manpower basis we can maintain a viable Gurkha force.

187. After cuts that have amounted to 50 per cent. in the last ten years?- This is a cut of about 14 per cent.- 1,000 on 7,000.

Chairman.

188. Did you arrive at the same sort of calculations as you told me about for the services for the U.K. based civilians, or was there any thought that there must not be too much unemployment amongst civilians? In proportion they are falling less than the armed services. There

was no extraneous consideration of that kind. We certainly had in mind that in circumstances in which we had to make quite substantial reductions in the armed forces our intention of maintaining as high an overall teeth to tail ratio as pos- sible made it desirable that the civilian element of the total Ministry of Defence family should, in the same sort of way as the uniformed services, undergo re- ductions. I feel that if the reductions had been almost wholly on the military side and not on the civilian side at all your Committee would probably have been quite rightly critical of us. The figure was arrived at on the same sort of philosophy as the figure for the uni- formed services, that is by our looking not only at the front line structure but also at the support structure, seeing where reductions were both sensible and feasible, then working out the implica- tion of these. Of course, as a result of the particular attention that we pay to our commitments outside NATO it is apparent from this table that inevitably a larger proportion, some 25 per cent., of our locally entered civilians, would be reduced than in the case of the UK reductions. With UK based civilians the reduction is slightly less than the overall proportion of service personnel reduc- tions, but in addition there is the fact of a substantial locally entered civilian reduction as well.