Royal Navy: Staffing

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I hope that the comfort that I was able to give the House in last week’s debate on the Royal Marines will have reassured many in Plymouth that there is no question of scrapping the Royal Marines. What is going on at the moment is a national security capability review, which is looking at numbers and capabilities and seeing how we can invest and spend our growing defence budget in the most intelligent way. But the ability to transfer personnel and equipment from ship to shore will remain highly relevant to the Royal Navy’s capabilities.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, what is the Minister’s view of the evidence given yesterday to the Public Accounts Committee by officials from his department, who said that more should be spent on defence, not least because of the adverse impact of the depreciation of the pound on the defence budget?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the depreciation of the pound is certainly an issue that we are wrestling with. To a certain extent, the Ministry of Defence hedges against currency devaluation but we cannot do that indefinitely into the future. We are protected to a large degree at the moment. But it is one of the reasons why we need an NSCR exercise such as the one going on at the moment, which is about not only investing in capability wisely but doing it in a cost-informed way.