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Royal Navy

I intend to cover that towards the end of my remarks. I am setting out what our Navy does because there have been many comments implying that the Royal Navy is broken and unable to deliver. The argument was advanced by the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) when he opened the debate, and we will probably hear more in the course of the debate. I shall set out the scale, the range and the quality of what our people do in the Royal Navy. We maintain ships in the south Atlantic in support of our responsibilities for the Falkland Islands and other south Atlantic territories. HMS Clyde, the new Falkland Islands patrol ship, will enter service later this year. Through training and co-operation, we are helping countries in the Gulf, west Africa and the far east to build up their capacity to conduct maritime security. We are providing intelligence support to operations. Survey ships currently operate in three of the five oceans. We have recently introduced new fishery protection vessels, and of course the Royal Navy continues to provide the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent, with a submarine on patrol, undetected, 365 days a year, as has been the case for the past 39 years. As well as these standing commitments, the Navy has demonstrated in recent years that it is more than capable of responding to humanitarian crises. The best example is last summer’s operation to evacuate British and other foreign nationals from Lebanon, where Royal Navy ships led the evacuation of some 4,500 people. We were also one of the first nations to respond to the 2004 tsunami with humanitarian assistance provided by the frigate HMS Chatham and RFA Diligence. These are robust demonstrations of the Navy’s global reach and flexibility.