Nia meeting a QDG campaigner at the homecoming parade in Swansea
Owen Smith MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Wales and Welsh MPs meet QDG campaigners, who then took a petition to 10 Downing St.
Nia Griffith MP is backing the campaign to keep the 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards (QDG), popularly known as the Welsh Cavalry, which the Tory-LibDem Government is threatening to abolish. Nia attended the recent homecoming parade of the Regiment in Swansea, and met campaigners, who pointed out that whilst the population of Wales makes up some 3.5% of the UK whole, soldiers from Wales make up 8% of the British Army.
Speaking up in Parliament at defence questions, Nia stressed that the people of Wales provide an above average number of soldiers to the British Army, in relation to population, and that it is symbolically very important to have a distinct Welsh identity, and she urged Nick Harvey the armed forces minister to ensure that this Welsh identity is retained. She has also written to the Secretary of State for Defence, Philip Hammond MP, urging him to keep the Regiment, and she has added her name to a motion praising the work the QDG’s brave and committed soldiers do on behalf of the UK, including their recent service in Afghanistan, and urging the Government to retain this senior, skilled and first-class regiment.
Speaking up in Parliament at defence questions, Nia stressed that the people of Wales provide an above average number of soldiers to the British Army, in relation to population, and that it is symbolically very important to have a distinct Welsh identity, and she urged Nick Harvey the armed forces minister to ensure that this Welsh identity is retained. She has also written to the Secretary of State for Defence, Philip Hammond MP, urging him to keep the Regiment, and she has added her name to a motion praising the work the QDG’s brave and committed soldiers do on behalf of the UK, including their recent service in Afghanistan, and urging the Government to retain this senior, skilled and first-class regiment.