Royal Navy: Escort Vessels

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his compliment about the carefully crafted response. SDSR set out how the Government would secure Britain in an age of uncertainty. Central to this is maintaining the trade routes and access to resources and protecting United Kingdom citizens, territory and trade from terrorism, piracy and unlawful restrictions on freedom of navigation. My noble friend mentioned Crow’s Nest. The final assessment phase was approved in January and is due to come into service in 2020, with a deployable capability shortly afterwards. Navy Command and Defence Equipment and Support is exploring whether funding can be made available sooner, to bring forward the in-service date by up to two years.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, the Minister, for whom I have great admiration, knows that we have insufficient escort hulls and need more. Nineteen are simply insufficient for our nation and paying off four Type 22 escorts in the strategic defence and security review—since when £12 billion of underspend has been created—was a terrible error. However, one must not dwell on these mistakes of the past. Does the Minister not agree that the £250 million per annum that we will pay BAE Systems not to build warships should perhaps be used to build escorts?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I cannot comment on what the noble Lord says about BAE. However, I compliment him on his resolute lobbying for the Royal Navy to attend the Royal Australian Navy’s 100th anniversary. The noble Lord has had a word with me two or three times about it. I can now assure him that the Royal Navy has responded to his request and will attend the 100th anniversary. HMS “Daring”, a Type 45 destroyer, will also be out there.