National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Baroness should not read anything in particular into what she perceives as a paucity of mention of the European Union in this document. There is no doubt that our membership of the European Union adds value to our defence capability. We have only to look at the operation in the Mediterranean to rescue migrants earlier this year to see how the European Union came together. I was in Brussels last week at a meeting of the European Defence Agency, which is another means whereby member states can collaborate to ensure that we have such things as common standards in air-to-air refuelling, aircraft safety and a range of other areas. The European Union is a vehicle for co-operation, in parallel to our membership of NATO, and I would be the first to pay tribute to the work of its member states in protecting the security of Europe.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. We should welcome this arrest in the decline in defence spending. We should also welcome the Government’s rather belated recognition of the damage that was done in the 2010 SDSR. But repairing the holes in our capability caused by that damage will take years and we need it today. In that context, for example, it is to be welcomed that the Statement says:

“We need the sea lanes to stay open and the arteries of global commerce to remain free flowing”,

but for that we need sufficient escorts. Does the Minister agree that it is not enough to say that we will not reduce our destroyer and frigate force from 19? Does he not agree that that force is far too small and that waiting until the 1930s, as the Statement says, is completely unacceptable?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I think the noble and gallant Lord meant the 2030s. This has been a matter of very deep consideration in the SDSR process. The commitment to maintaining our fleet of 19 frigates and destroyers is still there, as I have said. The Navy needs eight Type 26 frigates to undertake the core anti-submarine warfare role and we remain committed to building those ships. We are taking more time to mature the design and drive down the costs before we cut steel on the first Type 26. Meanwhile, we will build two more offshore patrol vessels to ensure continuity of work on the Clyde and to provide more capability to the Royal Navy.

The concept of designing and building a new class of lighter, flexible, general-purpose frigate is, I hope, interesting to noble Lords. We are clear that behind that lies an aspiration to increase the total number of frigates and destroyers available to the Royal Navy. If we can produce something that is more generic—that is less high-spec when it does not need to be state-of-the-art high-spec—that should benefit the reach and capability of the Royal Navy in the round. It should also benefit shipbuilders in Scotland and the rest of the UK. We will publish a new shipbuilding strategy in 2016 setting out the detail of that.