Bruce George, former Chairman of the House of Commons Defence Committee, today welcomed the government’s decision to reinstate the funding for training in the Territorial Army. Bruce, who is currently co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Reserve Forces, had earlier this week tabled an Early Day Motion calling on the government to reconsider its initial decision to cut the funding by £20 million and suspend training for six months.

Furthermore on Monday, when the Armed Forces Minister raised the issue in the House, Bruce was one of a number of Labour backbenchers to urge the Government to rethink. In the debate he said:

“I am not known to be hostile to the Government on defence, but I am very concerned about the Territorial Army, knowing its importance. Three Honourable Members signed an Early Day motion that is very modest in its aspirations, not over-the-top.

What I would ask, despite having heard the explanation, is whether, even at this stage, such a small amount of money, which must be minuscule compared with the overall defence budget, can be looked at seriously again. Does this not send the wrong message? Are we not talking about the most effective element of our entire defence budget? Surely some other area could be plundered if necessary in the short term, instead of sending that erroneous, potentially damaging message.”

Bruce was therefore delighted to see the government had a change of heart today and announced that it had decided to maintain the TA training regime at its current levels through this financial year and that the funding for this would be ring fenced.

Bruce George, who has long campaigned on behalf of indigenous people throughout the world, is supporting a campaign by Survival International calling on the Government to ratify the ILO Convention 169. The Convention recognises their rights to remain in possession of their lands, and to be consulted about projects which would affect them.

By today signing EDM 1299 Bruce has joined with Survive in accepting that to ensure the survival of tribal and indigenous people their land rights must be recognised and protected.

Today’s act is just the latest example of Bruce’s past campaigning on behalf of indigenous and tribal peoples. Indeed Bruce has the distinction of having a debate in the Canadian House of Commons in the early 1980s to have him thrown out of Canada for his campaigning on behalf of the native people of Canada, the Inuit’s (formerly referred to as Eskimo’s).

Speaking about the debate Bruce said today:

“Fortunately I was already back in London by the time of the debate, but I told the journalist who informed me of the short debate that I would happily return to Canada so they could throw me out!”