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Strategic Defence and Security Review

The long-awaited and long-overdue SDSR has been an extremely difficult task, and I place on record my thanks to the Secretary of State, his team and all those who have worked on the review. Portsmouth base alone considered 900 options over the summer, and I pay tribute to the Navy and civilian staff for doing an incredible job in a very short time. I am delighted that the review has not been sea-blind and has shown an appreciation of the role that the Navy plays and its contribution to other Departments such as the Foreign Office, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Treasury. That contribution is not just about our country's security but about our entire way of life—our ability to trade, our hydrographical and meteorological services, tackling crime and providing help in times of crisis. However, the breadth of its role should never detract from the depth of its contribution to the defence of the realm. To see the scale of the challenge that the SDSR presented, one just has to examine the disparity between what the 1998 strategic review suggested for the Navy and the current number of ships in service. For example, it suggested 12 Type 45 destroyers, and we are building only six. In future, to close the gap between need and affordability and to preserve the development and maintenance capabilities that we want in our bases and dockyards, we need a planned but flexible approach to procurement and to maximise every opportunity to increase UK exports. We must get away from small orders built at lightning speed, which short-change the Navy and the yard and place stress on the defence budget. I am delighted that we will focus more on industrial strategy and defence diplomacy, and I look forward to the opportunity that the Type 26 will bring to improve procurement practices and increase exports. We should remember that we have not sold a new Navy-designed ship abroad since the 1970s, but it is achievable. We are already selling standard kit to the US navy, and British gas turbines will power the DDG-1000 destroyer and are already powering the USS Freedom. I urge the defence team to focus on trade deals where they are viable and strategically advantageous. During the course of the review there has been much discussion of the inflexibility of the carrier contracts, as well as costly delays to the programme. Many Members have formed the view that that is why we are to have the carriers. I wish to use this opportunity to set the record straight. There are considerable running, docking and maintenance costs attached to having the carriers, and I do not believe we would have them if we had not concluded that they were absolutely necessary. I echo the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), who said that we needed two carriers if we were to have them available every day of the year. However, that can be no excuse for poor procurement and inflexible contracts, even for vital items. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) is absent from our Benches today. Sadly, he is attending the funeral of the late Councillor Alan Shotter, his friend and election agent. If he were here, he might well be arguing that we should lock ourselves into a contract for Trident's replacement, such is his concern about the matter. I know that he would be pressing the Secretary of State on that matter and joining in the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh). My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East wrote in a recent article that"““time and again, we hear the facile refrain that complex modern weapons systems are 'legacy programmes, irrelevant to the threats we face now'.””" We have heard that said about the carriers and about Trident during the review. I know that my hon. Friend will continue to make the case for early sign-up to Trident and remind the House why continuous at-sea nuclear deterrence is so important, and I will continue to remind the House of the importance of carrier strike. The arguments that we heard over the summer that carriers would be deployed only in the event of a world war are plain wrong, and ignore the fact that we have deployed carrier strike force in every humanitarian and conflict situation that we care to mention—the Falklands, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. It has extended Britain's reach into land-locked countries across the globe. Even when the carrier fleet has not been pressed into action, its constant presence has served as a deterrent to those who would harm us and our interests. I urge the defence team to do all they can to plug the gap in the carrier strike force, which some defence analysts have said has existed since 2005. I want the House to be excited about the new carriers. I am disappointed about the retirement of the Harrier, and I note the Secretary of State's comments on the matter. The decommissioning of the Ark Royal is also sad. Her battle honours are many, most notably in Iraq in 1993, and they will never be forgotten. However, the QE class carriers will continue her legacy. For those not familiar with those amazing ships, the Ark Royal can fit comfortably on one of their flight decks. They are amazing, and I urge all Members of the House to take every opportunity to see them being built—built with great skill in British yards. They are well able to meet the challenges of this unpredictable world. They are multi-use, they provide value for money and they will last 50 years. We will use them, they will prevent conflict and they will lead our response if and when the most dread circumstances arise. The green light for both carriers to be built gives Portsmouth base the stability to develop further as the home of the surface fleet. The SDSR and countless other studies have always concluded that Portsmouth should be the home port. Hon. Members who take The Times will be familiar with my favourite political sketch writer's column. In her coverage of Monday night's well-attended Adjournment debate, she confused the names of the base port, Faslane, and the maintenance dock, Rosyth, to produce Forsyth. Whether that was by design or error, it was very apt, because for many years we have had Scottish Members of Parliament and Portsmouth Members of Parliament yelling ““Higher, higher”” or ““Lower, lower”” at successive Secretaries of State in debates about where the carriers' home base should be. Although I am a fan of Brucie, I am glad that we can draw a line underneath that and that Portsmouth will be the carriers' home port.