National Shipbuilding Strategy

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

On the back of Sir John Parker’s report, a very careful assessment has been made of what he recommends. His recommendations carry considerable authority and are based on profound experience and a great degree of expertise. What the Secretary of State for Defence announced earlier goes a long way towards putting flesh on these proposals, not just announcing the text of a strategy, but also making clear what we are already doing to begin delivering it.

For example, as regards the three Type 26 frigates—in which I have a personal interest as they are being built on the Clyde—the steel has been cut for the first frigate, HMS “Glasgow”, and the contracts have been signed for another two of these Type 26 frigates. The other five, which will make up the aggregate total of eight, will be built in the Govan and Scotstoun yards. There is 20 years of work in that. That is great news for the Clyde, but there are also huge opportunities for those yards that want to tender for the Type 31e frigates. It seems to me that very much provides substance to the aspirations and the text of the strategy. There is actually stuff happening in our yards as we speak, and that is down to the Government’s commitment to make that happen and the desire of our shipbuilding industry to play a part in this and respond imaginatively to it. That is a very positive development.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome my noble friend to what she may find is the somewhat vexed subject of defence. In 2010, we reduced the cost of the Type 26 global combat ship to, we thought, something below £350 million. The eight of them will now cost £8 billion, which, by my maths, works out at about £1 billion each. What guarantees will the Government put in place to ensure that these new Type 31 frigates do not come in at a similarly inflated cost?

[Baroness Goldie]

I thank my noble friend for his kind words. On the specific question he raises, it is down, I suppose, to the law of contract. The Government are very clear that, building on what Sir John Parker has said, there now has to be much greater clarity about both design and specification, what we seek and what we ask the shipbuilders to indicate in their tenders that they can produce. At the end of the day, we need a price tag attached to that. Contracts have been signed for three of the Type 26 ships at a price of £3.7 billion. We anticipate that very rigorous and careful assessment will be made of any future contracts for the Type 31e ships, because at the heart of what Sir John Parker recommends is that we not only have to have a modern facility suited to the needs of the modern age and the threats posed by it, but we have to have an efficient means of procuring these ships, paying for them and ensuring that we also ask our shipyards to contemplate sustainable futures by being able to diversify, and seek in many cases to tender for other vessels that may not necessarily be of the warship type.