Carrier Strike Strategy

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Robert Courts]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that excellent point. I will refer to it in a little more detail shortly and I know that some of my hon. Friends will, too. I am keen to make the point that while the carriers are big grey ships that live in Portsmouth, they are not purely a Portsmouth matter. They have been built by constituents in all our areas and by companies across the whole United Kingdom. That has sustained the building of the carriers, but we need to ensure that they can be maintained and kept in service for decades to come. For that reason—it is exactly the point that the hon. Gentleman made—I am asking the Minister to consider a strategy.

We need a whole-Government approach. It is no good us just looking at this purely as a Ministry of Defence issue. I am conscious that I am asking the Minister to do more than is in his power, but it has to be a cross-Government approach. We have to look at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to see whether we have the industrial base to ensure that the supply chain that built the carriers remains in place to sustain and maintain them in the years ahead. The hon. Gentleman’s point is absolutely the point I wish to make.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He is making a brilliant speech. I am just thinking about the point he made earlier about the improbability or unlikeliness of us using the carrier fleet to act unilaterally. Although it might be difficult to imagine such circumstances, we cannot rule them out. There may be a time when we will have to act unilaterally, possibly on a smaller scale than the Falklands conflict. It is also not strictly easy to make a comparison between the carrier fleet today and what we sent to the Falklands. The capabilities are infinitely greater, even if it is smaller in size.

[Robert Courts]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who must have read my speech in advance, because I will go on to make exactly that point. If he will forgive me, rather than respond directly to his intervention I will move on to the next part of my speech.

In the Falklands, as I have said, we had approximately 60 destroyers and frigates as escorts. Of those, eight destroyers and 15 frigates were part of the taskforce. In the course of that conflict, four of those were lost and many more were damaged, some very seriously. The initial concern is that a similar impact today would destroy about one third of the Royal Navy’s air defence fleet, which would be unsustainable. Of course, we need more than the minimum deployed in case such damage takes place. I appreciate, as my hon. Friend said, that history never repeats itself exactly, and I entirely accept that the Falklands was a one-off, probably unique event. We would need many more ships available if we were looking to support an invasion force, as we were then, particularly when operating at the other end of the world, a long way from supply chains. I entirely accept that, and the parallels are not precise.

I accept entirely that the Type 45s are vastly more capable than the Type 42s that they replaced. It is also true that they are the best in the world as air defence destroyers. Essentially, they combine the Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke mission platform into one. They are better than each of them on a platform-to-platform basis, but it is not always the case that we can do the job with fewer. The Type 42s were the cutting-edge destroyers of their day, but as soon as the Falklands war started, we found their weaknesses ruthlessly exposed, particularly with regard to the survivability of damage. That was so horrifyingly exposed in the case of HMS Sheffield. I simply suggest that there comes a point where we need mass.

Although I want us to be able to act unilaterally—I do not disagree with my hon. Friend at all—we need to consider that in most cases we will not be doing that, so I simply ask the Government to consider a strategy for that. I am instinctively very reluctant to follow a line of argument that says that because a single platform is more capable than what it replaced, we can make do with less. I say that simply because all these high-tech platforms—this is true across the whole military capability—can turn out to be horribly vulnerable in ways we do not expect. I am thinking of the USS Cole incident with the speedboat packed with explosives. I am thinking of small drones, cheaply and easily available on the internet, that are packed full of explosives in a swarm capability, such that they overwhelm even the most potent defensive systems. I am thinking of the carrier killer missiles that we know are being developed by some potential adversaries. We can already see where the threats are. I simply say no more than this: while I accept that the parallels are not precise and the capability is streets ahead of what we saw when I was a child, there comes a point where we need mass, and we need to think about how we are going to provide that, given our finances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts) on securing the debate—I really enjoyed listening to his fascinating speech. His debate is on a topic of very strong interest to many people in my constituency—engineers, scientists and personnel from MOD Defence Equipment and Support, who have played a crucial part in realising the vision of new UK carrier strike capability.

We are fortunate in our country to have both a world-leading manufacturing defence sector and the best armed forces in the world. Many countries around the world use our forces as a reference for how theirs should train and operate. Our defence manufacturing industries ensure that the UK remains one of the top exporters of defence equipment and technical know-how in the world. That gives global Britain a strong platform as we seek to renew and enhance our trading and defence alliances around the world. I am particularly proud of the part that my constituency has played in bringing a new national carrier strike capability into being. Aircraft and the vessels have benefited, and will benefit, from the skill and creativeness of the men and women employed in and around Filton and in the broader south-west.

I will mention a few specific areas. Rolls-Royce’s involvement in carrier strike supports several hundred jobs at its Bristol site in my constituency. The Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier MT30 gas turbine, and the anti-air warfare Type 45 destroyer WR21 gas turbine, are supported by Bristol. It is also worth getting on the record that the anti-submarine Type 23 frigates, which are powered by Spey gas turbines, are supported out of the Filton plant, and that the STOVL derivative engines for the F35B, which will fly from the Queen Elizabeth, were designed there.

Thales, a founding member of the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, led the procurement of the glass flying control—FLYCO—position, fitted on to the rear island, which is the operational centre controlling all air operations. That links the ship’s operations room, navigation bridge, flight deck and hangar operations centre. Crucially, Thales provides the communications systems for both carriers. The systems, from wireless on board to satellite connectivity, allow personnel on the ships to talk to each other, the aircraft, the rest of the Navy and associated task groups, as well as allies, civilian vessels and air traffic, with complete security anywhere in the world.

BAE Systems has a networked visualisation suite at Filton, which allows the company to engage with the MOD and other customers in design reviews and approvals on an ongoing basis. I also pay particular tribute to the work done at MOD Abbey Wood in my constituency by more than 8,000 dedicated public servants, who will have been central to the acquisition of the ships, and the various sensors and systems on the ships and aircraft.

A national carrier strike capability is a clear outward sign of our intent to play an even bigger part on the world stage. We have heard much nonsense about Britain turning inward because of Brexit, but we have been a global maritime nation since the Elizabethan era, if not before. Our global connections might be underpinned by friendship and history, but such links are crucial and practically utilitarian. In a world where autocracies sometimes seem to have the upper hand, quiet diplomacy must always be backed by a credible capability. Our allies rightly look to us to come to their aid when they are threatened, or to act as a deterrent.

Many countries enjoy the opportunity to train with British service personnel. That helps to enhance and develop good relationships, which sustain a shared commitment to an open and inclusive world in which many might otherwise be tempted to appease or accommodate more powerful countries that do not necessarily have their best interests at heart, or share our values.

I, for one, was delighted when the Secretary of State announced the decision to deploy the Queen Elizabeth and a supporting group of escorts and auxiliaries in the far east in due course. That is a great reflection of our support for allies in the region, as well as a restatement of the freedom of navigation on the high seas, which is enjoyed by all. That is a tangible benefit that most people can understand of having carrier strike force capability. I am sure that the Minister agrees that if the carrier is going east of Suez and into the Asia-Pacific region, it would be great if it visited Singapore during the 60th anniversary of that country’s independence, which will be in 2025, to demonstrate the deep bonds between our two countries, and to emphasise our outlook being much more global.

We would do well to recall that we need to develop the carrier strike concept, and that by using F35s since the beginning, we have cross-trained with US personnel on an ongoing basis. That can only help our ability to operate and deploy with our key and closest NATO ally, the United States.

History shows us that we never seem to know where the next threat will come from. In a multi-polar world, we need to invest in capability that is agile and that will give policy and decision makers real, serious and tangible options. Carrier strike capability represents a sovereign capability, enabling our country to make choices that support our national interest. The challenges that we encountered during Operation Ellamy—the recent Libya campaign, when it was difficult for us to operate individually—demonstrated that the lack of proper carrier capability would inhibit our ability to act unilaterally in future, or even to act as well as we would like with some of our NATO allies. We now have an even greater opportunity to project the United Kingdom as a global presence, distinct from Europe, although we remain a firm European ally that will vigorously defend the continent’s freedom and security if necessary, through NATO.

The UK’s carrier strike capability will serve as a great way for our country to showcase some of the technology and innovation to which I have referred, specifically in my constituency. We need many more of the outstanding engineers and scientists who played such a central role in making the idea of new sovereign carrier strike capability a reality, so that we can enhance and increase our sovereign defence manufacturing capability well into the future. It brings together the best of British: great people, great ships, and great technical expertise and innovation.

However, we must always remember the purpose of our armed forces: to protect the national interest, our freedom and our way of life, and the security and protection of our people, using lethal force if necessary. I cannot think of a better way of doing that than with our carrier strike, and I cannot think of a better way than our carrier strike of enhancing our global position, being ambassadors to the world and tying together, as others have said, the three Departments of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence. That is something that we need to talk about a lot more.