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Royal Navy

I beg to move,"That this House notes the assessment of the Government’s 1998 Strategic Defence Review that two Future Aircraft Carriers are needed in the post-Cold War world to provide a seaborne base from which British military power can be projected and that a destroyer and frigate fleet of more than 30 ships would be needed to maintain two concurrent medium-scale deployments; views with concern the view expressed by Admiral Sir Alan West, when First Sea Lord in 2004, that the reduction of the destroyer and frigate total from 35 to 25, instead of the 32 promised in the Strategic Defence Review, meant that the country was taking risk on risk; notes with dismay persistent suggestions that six more will be mothballed, leaving an effective destroyer and frigate force of only 19; demands urgent clarification from the Government about its proposal to close Portsmouth or Devonport naval bases and calls upon the Government to provide an assessment of the implications for the long-term strategic vulnerability of the remnants of the surface fleet; sympathises with Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, the current First Sea Lord, that a failure to proceed with the Future Aircraft Carriers, which have still not been ordered though scheduled in 1998 for deployment by 2012 and 2015, would make his position untenable; and calls on the Government to clarify its intention on naval procurement in the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review." This is the first time during my 15 years in the House that I have managed the treble: questions, a statement and the debate in the one day. It is a pity that I did not secure the Adjournment debate and get a full house. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), who has consistently championed the Royal Navy and done a great deal of research on that front as part of the shadow Defence team. In a recent debate, I put on record my party’s support for the strategic defence review undertaken in 1998. It was a good review, which came to sensible conclusions about the sort of threats that the United Kingdom was likely to face. The review was reasonable in its expectation that the United Kingdom should be able to carry out one medium-sized and one small operation simultaneously, plus an occasional additional small operation. However, the defence planning assumptions that flowed from that have been exceeded in each of the past four years. In July 1998, the SDR promised the replacement of"““our current carriers from around 2012 by two larger, more versatile, carriers capable of carrying a more powerful force””." At the same time, it was decided to reduce the number of attack submarines"““over the next few years from 12 to 10””" and the destroyer and frigate fleet from 35 to 32. It was also decided that"““22 modern Sandown and Hunt class mine-hunters would be sufficient rather than 25 as previously planned””." The then First Sea Lord reluctantly accepted those reductions, given the promise of new carriers. The case for the carriers was simple: the ability to deploy offensive air power was central to future force projection operations. However, we could not be certain that we would always have access to suitable air bases. The two proposed new carriers would constitute a seaborne base from which a combined force of Royal Navy and RAF aircraft would be able to operate. At the time, the reduction in the destroyer and frigate total to 32 was based on the numbers needed for ““two concurrent medium-scale deployments””, and the loss of two submarines from the 12-strong attack force was excused on the basis that all 10 attack submarines would be equipped to fire Tomahawk land attack missiles. At the same time, the Government undertook to remedy long-standing undermanning in the Royal Navy. They claimed that personnel released by the changes set out would be redeployed across the service to meet shortfalls. Once manpower problems had been solved, they said, the net effect of the review on the Navy’s regular manpower requirement would be a reduction of some 1,400. Of course, the actual reduction since 1997, when the Government came to power, has been 10,000. In December 2003, another defence White Paper entitled, ““Delivering Security in a Changing World””, again stressed the role of the Royal Navy in projecting force from the ““sea onto the land””. However, a hint of what was to come was clear:"““Some of our older vessels contribute less well to the pattern of operations that we envisage and reductions in their numbers will be necessary.””" A supporting essay to the White Paper stated:"““Since SDR our Armed Forces have conducted operations that have been more complex and greater in number than we had envisaged. We have effectively been conducting continual concurrent operations, deploying further afield, to more places, more frequently and with a greater variety of missions than set out in the SDR planning assumptions. We expect to see a similar pattern of operations in the future, with the emphasis on multiple, concurrent Medium and Small Scale deployments. A major lesson of the last five years is that the Department and the Armed Forces as a whole have to be structured and organised to support a fairly high level of operational activity at all times.””" Despite the White Paper’s admission that operations had been more numerous and varied than the SDR had expected, on 21 July 2004 a supplement to the White Paper was published that proposed cutting the size of the fleet. Once again, the praises were sung of the yet-to-be-ordered future carriers and joint combat aircraft, as well as the new assault ships, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark and the forthcoming Bay-class landing ships. The logic of the Government’s treatment of the Royal Navy up to this point runs as follows: all the armed forces were scaled down at the end of the cold war, but adjustments were needed to reflect the strategic shift from a defensive role in Europe to the mounting of far-flung operations from a sea base. That required large strike carriers as a centrepiece, and a loss of five frigates and submarines was apparently a price worth paying in 1998. Instead of being cut from 35 to 32, however, the frigate and destroyer force has been cut from 35 to 25. Instead of being reduced from 12 to 10, the submarine force has been cut from 12 to a maximum of eight. The carriers—one of which was supposed to be in service by 2012—have not yet been firmly ordered, and the Government are now giving no target in-service dates, despite their previous willingness to do so. The projected 12 Type 45 destroyers, which have a key role in the air defence of the sea base, have been reduced to a programme of eight, but only six have been ordered, and ships seven and eight may never be built.