Shipbuilding: Warships

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as regards Type 26, it is true to say that ordering ships in batches is normal commercial practice. For one thing, it enables lessons learned in building the early batches to be reflected in lower prices for the later ships, which of course achieves better value for money overall. Contracting for all eight ships up-front would have precluded us from benefiting from the potential economies of scale, which may now come from the successful export campaigns to Australia and Canada.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend say how many destroyers and frigates are presently available for Royal Navy service and how many of them are fully crewed?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, all the frigates and destroyers that the Royal Navy has at its disposal are in one way or another fully operational. They may be subject to training of crew, they may be alongside having refits or they may be on deployments, but none of them is non-functional.