Royal Yacht Britannia: International Trade

Debate between Gerald Howarth and Mark Garnier

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mark Garnier)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the shadow Secretary of State for International Trade with his surfeit of maritime metaphors and his admiration for Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) on securing the debate. The topic is clearly a subject of great passion for many people across the House. I, for one, have always been a great fan of the royal yacht, which has been involved in many totemic events in our history, not least on 1 July 1997, when it slipped its moorings at HMS Tamar, rounded Hong Kong island and set off into the South China sea as the Union flag was lowered for the final time on the crown colony of Hong Kong.

I will pick up on a couple of points raised in the debate. The first is the recommissioning of the royal yacht in support of trade promotion. It is pretty clear that this Chamber is not in favour of that at all, which is right. In 1997 it was calculated that buying an extra five years for the former royal yacht would have cost £17 million and an extra 20 years would have cost £20 million. The former royal yacht is clearly well past its active life.

The second proposal is the potential commissioning of a new royal yacht in support of trade promotion, and I will take this opportunity to provide some context for the role and purpose of the Department for International Trade. The new Department has overall responsibility for promoting British trade across the world under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox). We will bang the drum for Britain across the world and pull out all the stops in boosting our trade, working with our overseas diplomatic missions to promote the UK as a place to do business and to trade with, driving inward investment and, in time, negotiating trade agreements. The Department will be the key player in selling the UK through exports and trade promotion, negotiating trade deals and attracting foreign direct investment into the UK. The Department will use any and all resources and assets at its disposal to secure those agreements and to boost our trade.

The royal yacht Britannia was, and is, an iconic symbol of Great Britain. As the second royal yacht to bear the name Britannia, and the 83rd such royal vessel, she was for more than 40 years an instantly recognisable feature on the seas as a representation of the United Kingdom, our royal family and our diplomatic service, and as a platform to showcase the best of the United Kingdom. Britannia’s primary role, at which she excelled, was to provide a base for the royal family’s national and international engagements, for which she sailed more than 1 million miles, undertaking just under 8,000 engagements—272 of those engagements were within British waters.

Britannia was the first ocean-going royal yacht, and her primary role was to provide a base for the royal family when going overseas. Before the royal yacht was built, the royal family used to—“hijack” is the wrong word—take control of an ocean liner or a royal naval warship and use it as their base, but the yacht’s secondary role was to provide a base from which the UK could engage with other Governments through diplomacy to secure trade and investment opportunities. Thirdly, of course, HMY Britannia had a reserve role as a potential medical facility in the event of conflict, a role for which she was fortunately never required but, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), she was used for the evacuation of Aden in 1986, when she evacuated 1,000 people of 44 different nationalities.

The royal yacht’s multifunctional role made it unique and special, projecting the United Kingdom’s diplomatic influence and reflecting the United Kingdom’s proud heritage as a seafaring trading nation. We are determined to make a success of our global role in the world, but recommissioning the royal yacht Britannia is not something the Government are considering at all. We will listen to the cases being proposed, but there are clear issues on feasibility and cost. The existing ship is a popular tourist attraction in Edinburgh.

Although there is no doubt that Britannia presents an impressive backdrop to the signing of trade and investment deals, there was and is much more to negotiations, which involve discussion, engagement and hard graft behind the scenes away from the pomp and splendour of the signing table—my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen said that although £3 billion-worth of trade deals were done, there is no conclusive evidence that the deals would not have been signed were it not for the royal yacht. Such hard work is central to the Department for International Trade’s responsibility to successfully negotiate trade agreements when we leave the EU in order to secure the UK’s economic future.

Today’s debate proposes the reintroduction of the royal yacht, which is currently moored in Scotland as a popular visitor attraction. Twenty years ago, the then Government proposed a replacement for Britannia, which was then more than 40 years old and in need of overhaul or replacement. Of course, as we know, the decision was taken to retire her without replacement. More recently, the royal yacht has been moored at the port of Leith and receives hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. The cost of reintroduction, including major overhaul to the engines, has not been explored but, as I mentioned earlier, even in 1997 it would have been very expensive. I also have no doubt that making moves to commandeer Britannia from her current home in Scotland would be strongly resisted—that point has been made vociferously.

As we have heard, there are also proposals to commission a new royal yacht, which many Members and organisations would support. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) said, I was once commodore of the House of Commons yacht club—I am not entirely certain that I do not still hold that position—and as such I am a natural ally of all things offshore, but hard facts stand in the way of a new yacht, not least the need for significant levels of funding to commission, build, fit out and maintain the vessel. We have heard that a vessel could be funded from outside sources, but a new yacht would require the latest design and technology, which the United Kingdom is best placed to provide. That would come at a cost, and we have yet to find out exactly how the yacht would be funded.

Media coverage over the past fortnight has included an alleged proposal for a replacement yacht from almost 20 years ago. Although it was not an official proposal, the figure of £60 million to build the new yacht would now likely be double that. There is also the additional cost to the taxpayer of operation and maintenance, which would need to be factored in.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I welcome the Minister to his role but, for goodness’ sake, let us place this in context. We spend £12 billion a year on overseas aid and, although it may not be possible to itemise exactly how much the royal yacht Britannia delivered in trade deals, the sentiment in this Chamber today is explicit that a new royal yacht at a modest £120 million would deliver for the British people a statement of our intent post-Brexit and would deliver a return on investment to the British economy.

[Mark Garnier]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, and I know he is passionate about this subject and Sir Thomas Cochrane, but we have not seen a business proposal or a cost-benefit analysis, so this debate is slightly hypothetical. The international development budget is separate from this discussion. We are talking about trade, not international development, which is slightly different. I think we would all be keen to see my hon. Friend make a business proposal, and no one is trying to stop him.

The former royal yacht was crewed by the Royal Navy and, as we have heard, there are three particular factors that need to be taken into account. A new royal yacht would fly the white ensign, would be state owned and would function as a floating royal palace, which means that the royal yacht would have to be manned by the Royal Navy. That would put pressure on the senior service. Even once those financial challenges were potentially overcome through private sponsors and donations, it would not negate the ongoing liability for 10, 20 or 40 years.

I also wonder whether a new yacht would provide the best return on investment. From 1989 to 1996, Britannia undertook 37 visits in support of UK exports and investment, which is not a huge number when we consider that in some years it cost as much as £12 million to run—it was expensive. Of those visits, more than a quarter were around the United Kingdom. We have new routes in emerging markets, and we have stronger ties and partnerships than ever before that have helped to secure our position as an open, outward-facing trading nation. It is also worth bearing in mind that we have 270 posts and missions across the world where we are flying the flag for Britain and going out to promote our country, which is important.

The Department was set up with the purpose of ensuring that we seize every opportunity that leaving the EU presents to forge a new way in the world and to make Britain a global leader in free trade. I am acutely aware that people in this room are firmly behind the proposal, but I make it clear that the Government have no plans, and have had no plans, to commission a new royal yacht. As such, it is very unlikely indeed that we would use taxpayers’ money to fund either a royal commission or an investigation into whether we could commission a new royal yacht.