Royal Navy: Frigates

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I take very seriously the noble Lord’s concerns on this issue. As I have said on earlier occasions, we want the first Type 31e in 2023, with five ships delivered by the end of 2028; that is to replace the five Type 23 general purpose frigates. As he knows, the Type 31e is being procured through competition between UK shipyards. We will not have the result of the competition until the end of this year, so until then, it will not be possible to make predictions about whether the delivery date that we have charged industry with is definitely deliverable—but we hope that it is.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, since the noble Lord raised the question of the Type 31e, I remind the Minister that when it was first promoted, it was described by some as a cheap frigate—a description which appears increasingly inept, to use the word of the moment. Originally, the price was to be £250 million. Do the Government now accept that a figure of £350 million is much more realistic, and that such a figure will require additional funds from an already overstretched budget and will make the obtaining of the promised export orders much more difficult to achieve?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I do not agree. As I said, we want the first ship in 2023, with five ships delivered at the end of 2028, and we are still setting industry the target of an average production cost of £250 million per ship. All the information I have had says that that is still realistic.