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HMS Tireless

The right hon. Gentleman asks us to do what we ought to do, which is recognise, first, that all submariners are special people to put themselves in such circumstances. The operation that Tireless was involved in, under the ice near the North Pole, is about as close as anyone can get to the cutting edge of capability, which we need to maintain. We must also appreciate the skill and bravery of all involved, not just those who were injured. On capability, we have removed standard SCOGs from almost the entire fleet. Instructions have been given to use none at all, other than for an emergency. I am told that under-the-ice operations are still possible—SCOGs are a secondary oxygen-generation system. I am not sure whether our capability is effective at the margins—I would have thought that it is—but we are working to put in place a new system. The new SCOG, with improved resilience to damage, is already arriving, but it will be used to replace the emergency SCOGs. The new system that we are considering will be used as the back-up oxygen-generation system.