Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

My hon. Friend has my assurance. This is the incredible value—it has been difficult to get there, and I recognise, as he does, that tough choices have had to be made, but we have got the books to balance. That is what is so critical. I will be speaking to companies this afternoon and during the course of tomorrow. They need to know that we have our ambitions and our funding into the same place, so that when I look them in the eye and talk about the orders that we will be placing in future, they can look with confidence and know that they can put investment into that, into their workforce and into their capital to ensure that they can meet our needs.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

May I also pay tribute to our armed forces personnel for their role during the pandemic? Their work has been fantastic and it has been all over the UK, including in the very far north of Scotland in my constituency. It seems to me that this is one of the benefits of being a United Kingdom, so that the United Kingdom armed forces can do these things, and I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) is not with us today.

A great deal of our precious gold has been spent on our splendid two new aircraft carriers. In future, will there be enough surface ships to mount protective screens for these two precious aircraft carriers? And if both these aircraft carriers are at sea with sufficient protective screens, where will that leave the rest of the Royal Navy’s surface fleet if it has to mount a non-aircraft carrier-led operation?

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his warm gratitude to the armed forces. He is absolutely right; they have been spread right across the United Kingdom. I think I am right in saying that the last time I looked at the numbers, we had 1,800 troops still deployed, of which 500 were deployed in Scotland, helping on covid-related tasks. What he says will be much appreciated by all those who are involved at present.

On our protective screens to the aircraft carriers, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that it is essential that we are able to provide them with carrier strike groups. We are very proud of that carrier strike group going out later this year. We will have sufficient frigates and destroyers to meet those requirements. There will be a dip, which has been publicised, with the retirement of two Type 23s, but we will be looking to 20 or more destroyers and frigates in short order; orders are being placed and we will ensure that we have them. I should also mention that we believe we have increased availability from the destroyers and frigates currently in our fleet, and the OPVs—offshore patrol vehicles—also help lessen the load on some of those frigates and destroyers, so I am confident we will be able to meet the requirements he sets out.