Defence: Carrier Strike Capability

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

First, I extend our sincere condolences to the families and friends of the three members of our Armed Forces who have made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf in the service of our country.

I thank the noble Lord for repeating the Statement made by the Secretary of State in the other place. Yesterday we had the Queen’s Speech, which contained no direct reference to our Armed Forces or to defence. Today we have found out why. Defence policy is today an embarrassment for a Government who acted in haste when they came into office and were more interested in trying to score points than in embarking on a measured and considered strategic defence and security review with time for full and appropriate consultation before final conclusions and decisions were reached. They are a Government who were more interested in making unsubstantiated claims about an alleged £38 billion unfunded liability over the next 10 years, and judging by the Statement just repeated by the noble Lord, the Government’s approach has not changed on that score. They have withheld information from the Commons Defence Select Committee as to how that figure was calculated, and the National Audit Office figures did not support their claim either.

A key reason why money is now in short supply is because the growth in the economy which this Government inherited had been thrown away by them six months after they took office, has never been restored, and we are now in a double dip recession. The rushed strategic defence and security review made no real reference to north Africa, yet a few months later our forces were involved in action in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast. In their foreword to the strategic defence and security review, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister had declared, as they decommissioned HMS “Ark Royal” and sold off the Harriers at a knock-down price, that:

“In the short term, there are few circumstances we can envisage where the ability to deploy airpower from the sea will be essential”.

Fortunately, that view was not shared by those nations which did have an operational aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister went on to assert that the previous Government,

“committed to carriers that would have been unable to work properly with our closest military allies”.

They said that they would “rectify this error” by fitting,

“a catapult to the operational carrier to enable it to fly a version of the Joint Strike Fighter with a longer range and able to carry more weapons”.

Indeed, the Prime Minister asserted that the previous Government had got it “badly wrong”. The Government’s rushed strategic defence and security review then told us:

“Installing the catapult and arrestor will allow the UK to acquire the carrier-variant of Joint Strike Fighter ready to deploy on the converted carrier instead of the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant. This version of the jet has a longer range and greater payload: this, not large numbers of aircraft, is the critical requirement for precision strike operations in the future”.

Do those words I have just quoted from the SDSR now represent government policy or not in the light of the Statement the Minister has just repeated, which says that the Government will switch the order for JSF aircraft from carrier-variant to STOVL? In view of the penultimate sentence in the foreword to the SDSR by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, which says:

“We must never send our soldiers, sailors and airmen into battle without the right equipment”,

has the Prime Minister now changed his view? Does he now accept that the STOVL-variant rather than the carrier-variant of the JSF is the “right equipment” for our forces?

The Prime Minister has now come to the conclusion that the previous Government’s policy is right. However, the Statement repeated by the Minister seeks to hide behind a claim that the facts have changed. Apparently it has now been found out that the “cats and traps” system cannot be delivered until late 2023 at the earliest. Partly as a result of the delayed timetable, the estimated cost of fitting this equipment to the “Prince of Wales” has apparently more than doubled in the last 17 months, and the cost of fitting cats and traps to the “Queen Elizabeth” would be even higher. Perhaps a little more time spent on undertaking the strategic defence and security review and consulting more widely would have drawn attention to these problems of timescale and cost that the Government say have caused them to rethink their approach.

The Government had clearly decided that there was no likelihood of a problem with cost and timescale, because the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister said in their foreword to the SDSR:

“We will fit a catapult to the operational carrier to enable it to fly a version of the Joint Strike Fighter with a longer range and able to carry more weapons”.

There is nothing there about any possibility of a problem over timescales or costs, or a need to look at timescales and costs. We were also told that,

“at the time of the SDSR, there was judged to be a very significant technical risk around the STOVL version of JSF”.

The technical risk was apparently so significant that it does not appear to have been referred to in the strategic defence and security review as a reason for the Government’s decision to switch the order for JSF aircraft, a decision they are now reversing.

The fourth reason given for the change of approach is that,

“further work with our allies on the best approach to collaborative operation has satisfied us that joint maritime task groups involving our carriers … is the more appropriate route to optimising alliance capabilities”.

Surely that is the kind of issue that should be considered at the time of a strategic defence and security review, not immediately after it. No doubt it could have been considered as part of the SDSR if the Government had not been so determined to rush it through and end up with the policy U-turn that we are being told about today.

The Minister has told us in the Statement why the decision made by the previous Government on carrier strike capability was right and why the present Government’s policy has had to be abandoned. Perhaps the Minister can tell us the cost to the nation of the Government’s U-turn, and when the Government expect to make further announcements on their equipment programme in the light of Future Force 2020. Can the Minister also take this opportunity to put the record straight and confirm the National Audit Office finding that cancelling both carriers would have saved £1.2 billion but that, in government, his party agree that it is not in the national interest to do so?

At a time when cuts are having to be made, at the very least our Armed Forces deserve clarity and certainty of decision-making by the Government. On the subject of carrier strike capability that most definitely has not been the case. Since the Prime Minister took personal responsibility for this key decision in the strategic defence and security review, it is the Prime Minister’s competence that has been found wanting.

We support the policy U-turn announced today, which accepts that the previous Government’s decision was correct, but we do not support the taking of the wrong policy options previously by this Government under a rushed SDSR or the resultant waste of time and money. Let us hope that the decisions announced today will now provide our Armed Forces with the much needed clarity and certainty they deserve as far as carrier strike capability is concerned.