Royal Navy: Frigates

Lord Burnett Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I assure the noble Lord that it will not be that late. It is true that the procurement performance of the Ministry of Defence, which lagged for many years, has improved in recent years, as we know from the NAO reports and elsewhere. However, we also knew that surface ship procurement was problematic. That is precisely why we asked Sir John to undertake his work in the first instance, and he has given us some very encouraging pointers.

[Lord Burnett (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend assure me that, in the event that the Argentinians were so foolish as to attempt another invasion of the Falkland Islands, we would currently have, and in future will have, the capacity to act in the way that we did on the last occasion that such an effort was made?