Defence: Support Ships and Type 32 Frigates

Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich Excerpts

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The Type 32 is conceived as an agile, resilient and capable ship. However, I point out to the noble Lord that we have already, for example, upgraded Type 45s with the Sea Viper Evolution programme and upgraded Type 23s with the Naval Strike Missile in partnership with the Norwegians—the first ship will be ready by the end of the year. In addition, the initial Sonar Type 2150 ships have already been upgraded. We are constantly reviewing how we can keep our fleet swift, agile and effective.

[The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich]

My Lords, given that one of the intentions and evident benefits of a national shipbuilding programme is local economic benefit, including the levelling-up aims of investing in young people and retraining older workers, and that shipyards are, by and large, in areas of deprivation where such benefit is vital, will His Majesty’s Government ensure that current capacity and design skills, apprenticeship training and other essential infrastructure is maintained pending the commitment to the Type 32 frigates and MRSS programmes so that it does not cost a great deal more to initiate these vital programmes?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for making a number of extremely important points. The whole essence of the national shipbuilding strategy was to ensure that we got shipbuilding in the United Kingdom on to a more stable and sustainable basis. The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right: the MoD’s direct spend supports 29,800 jobs in the shipbuilding industry—that includes submarines—with a further 21,300 jobs supported indirectly. There is an opportunity for shipbuilding in the UK to deliver exactly the sort of benefits to which the right reverend Prelate refers.