Fleet Solid Support Ships

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, the Defence Select Committee said that Ministers should ensure that warships are built in UK yards and that this designation continues to include fleet solid support ships. Welcome as these new ships are, why did the Government not accept the Team UK bid? Team UK’s bid showed 6,000 more UK jobs. How many jobs have been lost as a result of not accepting that bid, and how many of the ships will be made and associated work done in Spain? Time and again, Parliament has called for the UK Government to fully support our sovereign defence capability. Is not this just another missed opportunity to fully support the British defence industry?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)]

I do not agree with the noble Lord’s assessment of a very exciting opportunity for British shipbuilding. The bulk of these ships are going to be built within the UK, particularly in the shipyard of Harland & Wolff. It is a tremendous coup for Team Resolute that they have succeeded in this. There will be extensive investment in infrastructure in Harland & Wolff’s yard. They are warships, but that is precisely why the majority of these ships will be built in the UK. He suggests that all these complex programmes and platforms are built entirely in a single country, but that is not the case, such is the technical complexity nowadays. For example, the F35, a US aircraft, is partly built in the UK. Our Dreadnought submarines and the US Columbia-class submarines will share a common missile compartment, built in both the United States and the UK. We should be celebrating what is very good news for the British shipbuilding industry.