Defence

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

I join others in thanking the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) for securing this debate. I found out a couple of minutes ago, to my astonishment, that he is not right honourable, but I am sure that will be rectified in good time. He was quite correct in what he said in his speech, and he struck a chord with me when he talked about the economic benefits to the country of maintaining defence spending. I will use the last part of my speech to talk about that, particularly as it relates to shipbuilding and the national shipbuilding strategy.

I have a great family history in that many members of my family have served in the armed forces, and when it comes to defence spending, Thales, a company in my constituency, is celebrating its centenary this year. As I noted in early-day motion 292, the company has now provided visual systems equipment for submarines—or, for the lay person, periscopes—for 100 years. That resonates with me because, when it was trading as Barr and Stroud, my grandfather and grandmother met there, fell in love and ended up married for 61 and a half years. They were very keen supporters of the Scottish National party, and if it was not for them I would not be here in the Chamber today.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) for mentioning the Coming Home centre, which is celebrated in early-day motion 499. It provides 1,000 hot meals a month to veterans in Glasgow, and it does fantastic work. I am a regular visitor to that centre, and am always keen to help with its funding.

The hon. Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) made an important point that was backed up by other Members when he said that the Government should be allocating more time to discuss defence matters. For example, Sir John Parker’s report on shipbuilding was published on 3 November 2016, but the first opportunity for Members of the House to debate that report was 8 February 2017, when my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman) secured a debate in Westminster Hall.

We had a ministerial statement on the national shipbuilding strategy from the former Defence Secretary—it is fair to say that it was a presentational dog’s breakfast—but we have not yet had the opportunity to debate that strategy, despite the best efforts of many members of the all-party group on shipbuilding and ship repair, who are always applying for such debates. This is therefore an opportunity for Members such as me—and I am sure others—to debate the national shipbuilding strategy.

For me, the national shipbuilding strategy has flaws that should be explored by hon. Members across the House to see whether we can put them right. Our real fear is that the national shipbuilding strategy is going back to the thinking of the 1980s, which suggested that shipyards should be in competition with each other. Such thinking has only ever led to shipyards closing. Competition has not led to the cutting of costs; with shipbuilding it has led to higher costs and to some famous shipyards—such as Swan Hunter—no longer being around and trading.

We must consider whether we want specialist shipyards that build complex naval warships. That was the position of the former Labour Government who decided that the centre of excellence for building complex naval warships was on the Clyde. I am always grateful to the workforce at Govan on the Clyde, and particularly to the trade union representatives who do a magnificent job of representing their members in the shipbuilding industry.

The other flaw in the national shipbuilding strategy is the nonsensical position of ignoring Sir John Parker’s recommendations, and sending the building of Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships out to international competition. This country has just completed a process during which the Aircraft Carrier Alliance was built across shipyards in the UK. If that was good enough for the Alliance, surely it is good enough for Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships. I do not believe that sending Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships to international competition will save the Ministry of Defence money—far from it. Indeed, the Government would make greater savings if they built the ships in the United Kingdom, because the workers building those ships would pay income tax into Government coffers. There will be no savings in sending the building of Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships to international competition, and I hope that the new ministerial team in the MOD will look seriously at that issue. These ships should be built in the United Kingdom.

The hon. Member for Gedling mentioned price tags, and his speech resonated with me with regard to general purpose frigates. There is a flipside to what he said about price tags, and I have the impression that the price tag set for a general purpose frigate will determine its capabilities. We have yet to discover—either in a debate or during Defence questions—what will be the capability of the general purpose frigate. It seems to be a downsize from the Type-26 frigate, three of which are contracted to be built in my constituency. What is the role, purpose and function of the general purpose frigate for the Royal Navy? We do not yet know.

[Vernon Coaker]

I am sorry to interrupt, but this is such an important point about capability. If you have an equipment budget projected over the next number of years, it must be based on a certain price. So if you do not know the price of those frigates and the price goes up, the only way to pay for them without increasing resources is to cut a capability somewhere else. It is ridiculous.

[Chris Stephens]

I fully agree with that point. Francis Tusa, a defence analyst, said that if anyone believes it is possible to build a general purpose frigate for £250 million they are guilty of a conspiracy of optimism. There is no defence expert who thinks that that is an appropriate price for building the general purpose frigate.

[Mr Ellwood]

I want to provide a bit of clarity on this important point, which is part of our shipbuilding strategy. Yes, there is a tentative price tag of £250 million, but each ship will be tailor-made for the order that we actually get. As the number of orders that we get goes up, the unit cost of the ships will go down. Of course there are ways of criticising that, and if Opposition Members have another strategy in mind, I invite them to suggest it; but I want to make it clear that this is something that we are doing, in advance, to utilise our friendships across the world to provide a capable ship that can be utilised in a number of maritime capabilities, depending on the details of the individual order.

[Chris Stephens]

I thank the Minister, who has been constructive, but I would gently say to him that there was a promise that 13 Type 26 frigates would be built, and that was cut to eight Type 26 frigates and five general purpose frigates, the purpose of which we do not yet know. He mentions orders. It seems to me the argument is that these general purpose frigates could be exported, but who would they be exported to? If we do not know the purpose, the role and the function, why would anybody anywhere else in the world buy a general purpose frigate? It makes no sense. When the Minister sums up, he may want to consider those issues.

The Government have a role to play in shipyard investment. The Ministry of Defence has talked, not just on the Clyde but at other shipyards too, about being more efficient, and if those shipyards are to be more efficient it means a very real investment in shipyard reconstruction and construction. When the former Secretary of State made his statement on the national shipbuilding strategy, he insisted that there was a frigate factory on the Clyde. While he was at the Dispatch Box, insisting that there was a frigate factory on the Clyde, representatives of the GMB trade union were taking journalists round the Clyde, showing them the site where that proposed frigate factory was supposed to be built, and it was rubble and ash.

We really need to get this right. I support the construction of a frigate factory, but it will need investment, and the Ministry of Defence has a real role to play in providing finance and money for that, because if it is insisting that shipyards should be more efficient and that they should reconstruct, it has a role to play. I hope that it will consider investing in a shipyard construction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard]

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and then, importantly, Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave in the heart of Europe. We should all be studying this important defence context.

We need to invest more in our cyber and intelligence capabilities, but not at the expense of our conventional forces, as has been said. We need to invest not only in our equipment, but in our personnel. I know from conversations with off-duty service personnel in the pubs around Plymouth that morale is a concern, not only because of the poor state of armed forces accommodation, as has been mentioned, but because of the pay cap and the uncertainty of their role in the world. Key to our armed forces is their ability to get on and do. They do not question; they just deliver. It is up to us in this place, and to Ministers, to do our bit to ensure that they have the backup they need. At the moment there is much more that could be done.

I am grateful to the Armed Forces Minister for meeting me yesterday to talk about the base-porting of frigates, which is an important issue in Devonport. I welcome the decision to base-port the new Type 23s with tails and ASW—anti-submarine warfare—capabilities in Devonport, but I encourage Ministers to set out a timetable for when the base-porting arrangements for the Type 26s and Type 31s will be made so that we can provide certainty. Devonport has a 25-year order book for maintenance in our dockyard, but that is not the case for our naval base. That certainty is very important.

In my maiden speech I made the case for the Type 26s to be base-ported in Plymouth. At the time I was expecting 13 Type 26s, as Scottish National party colleagues have mentioned, but we now expect only eight of them plus the Type 31s. I am concerned about the debate on the Type 31s, because we must have confidence in these warships, to ensure that they and the crews who serve on them around the world are respected. I think that the debate on the Type 31 frigate could be resolved simply if Ministers renamed it a corvette rather than a frigate. The Type 26 frigate will be world-class and world-beating. Let us not spend our time in this place talking down the Type 31. We should be having 13 Type 26s, but for various reasons we will not, so let us have five world-class corvettes, not just cheap frigates, which would do us and the Royal Navy no favours. I think that could easily be rectified.

While I am making requests of the Minister, will he provide some clarity today on what is happening with HMS Ocean? Having returned from expert work supporting hurricane-hit communities in the Caribbean, to hear from the Brazilian Government that they have purchased HMS Ocean for £84 million, not from the UK Government, felt like a kick in the teeth for all those closely associated with this world-class ship. I would be grateful if the Minister provided clarity on what is happening to her.

I mentioned HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark at the start of my remarks. I expect Ministers to hold true to their promise that Plymouth will be a centre for amphibiosity. That means not only retaining the Royal Marines in Plymouth after the closure of its spiritual home at Stonehouse barracks with a new purpose-built facility in the Plymouth area, but also ensuring that we have amphibious ships that are capable. The Bay classes are brilliant ships but they cannot replace the capabilities of the Albion class ships, and neither can the carriers. Losing HMS Ocean’s unique littoral capabilities for a helicopter carrier cannot be replaced by the Prince of Wales.

So we know we are having a capabilities cut already, but we need to make sure that, in providing a world-class centre for amphibiosity, we retain Albion and Bulwark and the Royal Marines. I am pleased that there has been cross-party and cross-Chamber support for the retention of the Royal Marines and the amphibious warships, and I know that Ministers have listened carefully to this. I must tell the Minister that many Members on both sides of the House will join him in any contest he has with the Treasury to make sure that he gets the resources he needs to provide for our armed forces.

On four occasions to date since being elected, I have asked Ministers to rule out cuts to Albion and Bulwark, but on each occasion I have been told it is simply speculation and is untrue. I ask the Minister now to give some certainty to those who serve on those ships by ruling out the cuts once and for all so that we can focus on where we need to get to, and to rule out cuts to the Royal Marines. Plymouth already saw the loss of 300 Royal Marines from 42 Commando just before the general election, so we have recent history of knowing that cuts to the Royal Marines can, and indeed do, happen. They are a vital pipeline for our special forces; the 6,500 Royal Marines provide 40% of our special forces. We must preserve and embed this pipeline.



On submarine recycling, we have spoken about the importance of our hunter-killers and our ballistic missile submarines, but I also want to raise the issue of the 19 decommissioned defuelled or fuelled submarines lying at rest in Devonport or at the naval base in Rosyth. Valiant, Warspite, Conqueror, Courageous, Sovereign, Splendid, Spartan, Superb, Trafalgar, Sceptre, Turbulent and Tireless are waiting in Devonport dockyard for recycling. The demonstration project on Swiftsure in Scotland is, I believe, paused at present.

We need a long-term solution so that we can safely dispose of our nuclear legacy, ensuring that, when new submarines are brought on board, we as a nation deal with the legacy of previous ones. We must ensure that the people of Plymouth and Rosyth do not have an indeterminate uncertain legacy in their dockyards without knowing what will happen to them in the future. This topic is being raised on the doorsteps in Plymouth, and although it only affects two places across the country, it should affect all of us in how we deal responsibly with the legacy of our armed forces.

I agree with all the remarks that the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) made about our shipbuilding strategy. We must have clear investment in that strategy, and the House should be firmly opposed to building the solid support ships abroad. The tonnage of those ships would equal that of the carrier programme, and we have demonstrated that the carrier alliance model works. As the RFA ships might not be armed but will be carrying munitions, the Government should determine that there will be a restricted tender for security and defence reasons, so that the long-term contract is provided to a UK facility.

[Chris Stephens]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if these ships are procured internationally there will be serious consequences for the UK shipbuilding industry?

[Luke Pollard]

Yes. The protection of our sovereign defence capability to both build and design must be preserved not only in naval matters but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) said, in the Air Force as well. We must make sure we have a clear strategy and a clear plan to deliver on protecting the vital, high-skilled jobs in the UK that will preserve our unique role in the future.

This debate was too important to miss. I would have liked to see more Members present, and I encourage the Minister to follow the suggestion of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) and hold defence debates in Government time. It is not only Members who have served or have a military establishment in their constituency who should voice their view on this; the whole House should understand the importance of the defence of the realm, how precarious the international situation is at present and how vital it is that Labour, SNP and Conservative Members speak with one voice—[Interruption]—as must Liberal Democrat Members and others. We must speak with one voice in backing our troops and armed forces. We need a long-term plan with long-term funding so that we can provide the certainty and clarity our armed forces, the civilian contractors who work with them and our veterans need.