Royal Navy: Aircraft Carriers

Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton Excerpts

Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, that is precisely the question I asked earlier in a briefing. I am assured that the carrier which has left to join Steadfast Defender will certainly fulfil its commitments, and that the “Queen Elizabeth” is on her way to dry dock to find out exactly what is wrong.

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, I am a simple soldier, but I do not underestimate the complexities of trying to get carriers to sea, not least marrying the personnel issues with the mechanical. My concern, though, is a slightly different question. Does my noble friend feel that the MoD’s attitude to risk is currently in balance? From my experience over a number of years now, our attitude to risk seems to be that we are becoming ever more averse to it. Of course if a propeller is not working, a warship cannot go to sea, but it seems that ever smaller incidents prevent principled actions happening because we are becoming so risk-averse when many of these risks could be mitigated and ships could get to sea.

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My noble friend raises an extremely interesting point. As I think many noble Lords know, I have come in from the private sector relatively recently, where the concept of risk is considered completely differently from how it is within government, and certainly within the Ministry of Defence. I fully understand that, when you are dealing with people’s lives, you want to minimise the risk as far as you possibly can, but there comes a point where you have to get the risk-return in balance. I am not certain that we have got that right in government yet.