Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Jeremy Quin

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

There are shipyards throughout the United Kingdom that will look into this process to see how they can prosper, but I am acutely aware of the great skills that are exhibited on the Clyde and at Rosyth and of the fantastic job they are doing and have continued to do throughout covid. I am grateful for their continuous support throughout the process.

I am grateful also to the hon. Gentleman for talking us through the history of some of the decisions; he is right that a lot of them are protracted. I am proud to say, however, that with the plans we have unveiled, we will have seven classes of vessel produced in the UK for the first time since 1973, so that is another historic milestone. What we are setting out is a clear vision of how we will progress frigates, destroyers and other vessels such as the multi-role surveillance ship, and FSS. There is clearly a large pipeline of work for UK shipbuilders to focus on, to upskill for and to be sharpening their pencils for to ensure that they can engage with us properly.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I am delighted to see the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) wearing a Royal Engineers tie.

It is fantastic to hear this commitment to shipbuilding. In my experience in the MOD, the Navy would ask for five ships, centre would say, “Four should be enough. Here’s three, we’re going buy two and we’ll only service one.” Very quickly, we would be reduced to less than had been promised in the initial strategy. With the pivot to Asia we have been promised and the commitment to base out of Singapore, can my hon. Friend assure me that not only will we have the purchasing capability, but we will have the servicing capability that makes such a difference to the actual deployment of ships? As we know, we have had too many tied up for too long, when we need them to be out doing exactly what we pay them for.

[Jeremy Quin]

Yes, I can absolutely assure my hon. Friend on that point. I admire his maths, as well his attention to detail in respect of the hon. Gentleman’s sapper tie.

I assure my hon. Friend that we are absolutely on it. We need to maintain the availability of our fleet. We are not about saying, “We’ve got X number of ships. Isn’t that great?” when they are all tied up in Portsmouth. There is no point in that. We need our fleet to be present, to be persistent and to be forward looking, and that is exactly what we are going to be focusing on. This might be stretching his question too far, but let me say that the same also applies to our land industrial strategy, which I am proud to have announced today as part of this process.