Royal Navy: Type 31e Frigates

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Houghton of Richmond

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The right reverend Prelate’s bid will not be lost on those of my colleagues who are responsible for decisions of this kind. However, I am afraid I can tell him that no decision has been taken as yet.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in defence procurement issues, as reflected in the register. I wholly support the noble Lord’s aspiration to increase the size of the surface fleet—it must be expanded. The Minister will, however, recognise that the three principal trade-offs in a great military procurement exercise are performance, cost and time. Cost is fixed. Time is fixed. Performance must be traded down. Does the Minister agree that the best way to trade on performance is in some way to compromise on the exquisite nature of the platform to ensure that the combat and command systems on board are state of the art?

[Earl Howe]

The noble and gallant Lord speaks with great experience and he is right: we are consciously prescribing an adaptable but general-purpose specification for the Type 31e, as opposed to the more exquisite high-end specification of, for example, the Type 26. That is not to say—as I emphasised before—that the Type 31e will be in any way an inferior warship—quite the contrary, in terms of the capability that we will require of it.

Trident

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Houghton of Richmond

Thursday 25th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am happy to confirm to the noble and gallant Lord that that is the Government’s policy. We reaffirmed the continuous at-sea deterrent posture in the 2015 strategic defence and security review and, as he rightly says, we have had a nuclear armed submarine on patrol for every minute of every day for nearly 50 years, including during the transition between the Resolution and Vanguard classes.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I would never publicly question the utility to our defence of the nuclear deterrent, nor the carrier programme, nor the F-35 programme. But it is eminently clear to me that for several years now, the balance of the conventional forces has been used as the financial regulator in order to afford these programmes. Does the noble Earl not agree that, unless the whole of the defence programme is made affordable, we will be presented with decisions that so hollow out our conventional forces that the sense of affording the nuclear deterrent will be seriously questioned?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I understand the noble and gallant Lord’s point. There is a £31 billion budget for the Dreadnought programme and we are currently confident that that estimate is robust. It is quite separate and distinct from other procurement budgets. We do not consider that it impacts upon them adversely—but we are conscious of the risks that he articulates.

Defence: Helicopters

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Houghton of Richmond

Thursday 14th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I shall do exactly that. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his suggestion. We are on track to share headline conclusions from the modernising defence programme by the NATO summit in July. At that stage we expect to describe what the changed strategic context means for defence policy and planning, including the area in which the noble Lord is interested; how our overall approach needs to evolve, as surely it must; and how we intend to pursue improved capability in the new domains of warfare.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Earl not agree that, given both the size of our defence budget and the multiple challenges of affordability it faces, the idea that we can for all time sustain a whole range of sovereign defence capability is simply untenable?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I do not think that this Government or any preceding recent Government have pretended that we can maintain sovereign capability in every area of our defence requirements. We certainly consider maintaining sovereign capability where that is in the national interest but, in general, competition ensures best value for money, best capability and innovation.