HMS “Queen Elizabeth”

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble Baroness’s crystal ball must be bigger than mine, because the answer to the outcome of the United States presidential election is unclear to me. As she will be aware, the United States is of course a very important ally. It is very significant to our defence relationships across the world. We work with Administrations of whatever hue. That is what we have done in the past and will do in the future.

[Lord Touhig (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, on 13 March last year, during a Question about deploying HMS “Queen Elizabeth” to the Pacific, I said:

“When the Americans deploy a carrier they provide an escort of a cruiser, four destroyers, a carrier wing, a submarine and 7,500 sailors.”—[Official Report, 13/3/19; col. 1019.]


I asked whether Britain can do that. Unfortunately, I am still waiting for an answer.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I am not sure the noble Lord will get one this afternoon, but I will do my best. As I indicated, the carrier strike group is importantly constructed to operate with the support of allies. By way of illustration, within the UK’s capability, the October group exercise brought together all the CSG elements—a carrier, jets, helicopters, escorts and supporting assets. Building on that success, the carrier strike group then participated in the annual NATO exercise Joint Warrior off Scotland, which was a massive exercise and in total involved 6,000 people on land, sea and air. I reassure the noble Lord that the carrier strike group will be a formidable presence.