Royal Navy: Warships

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we have been quite open about the pressures that we face. The defence equipment plan summary, published yesterday, acknowledged that the equipment plan emerging from the MoD’s current year budget contains a high level of financial risk and an imbalance between cost and budget. It is exactly those risks and imbalances that we aim to resolve in the programme that is now under way.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that, in answer to a parliamentary Question in the other place from SNP MP Ronnie Cowan, the Ministry of Defence said that it had spent more than £100 million on a study to explore options for a potential future warhead and whether to refurbish or replace? The noble Lord, Lord West, told me that he would have done it for much less money. Did the Ministry of Defence consider that option?

[Earl Howe]

I am sure that the Ministry of Defence could well have done with the advice of the noble Lord, Lord West, in this context—which we, too, are always keen to have. But I can assure the noble Baroness that, in all work undertaken by my department, cost-effectiveness and affordability are key.