Defence in the High North

Mark Francois Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dhesi]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman, a fellow member of the Defence Committee, on his recent elevation to Lib Dem defence spokesperson for veterans and people. No doubt he will give our former Committee member, now the Minister for Veterans and People, good scrutiny in the future.

The hon. Gentleman rightly highlights that there are significant capability gaps, and those need to be addressed. As I said earlier, while we can be proud of the expertise and capabilities of the Royal Marines, those are no substitute for naval vessels or for having the platforms through which they can project that expertise.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Unlike the Secretary of State for Defence, Conservative Members listen to the Chair of the Defence Committee, and indeed to his colleagues who have produced an excellent report, “Defence in the High North”. As I must be brief, I wish to ask about the report’s warnings about the lack of operationally available assets in the Royal Navy, both surface escorts and attack submarines. As the report states on page 29:

“According to several media sources, all five Astute Class nuclear attack submarines have recently all been tied up in dockyards at the same time, with none deployed.”

That point has been mentioned by several Members this afternoon. The Astute class was once described to me by a naval officer as being like a Formula 1 racing car—great on the track, but a bitch when it gets into the pits. The hon. Gentleman mentioned serious capability gaps, so when does he think Ministers will finally come clean about why all five of our nuclear attack submarines have been tied up for months?

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank the shadow Minister for his kind words about the work of the Committee. Capability gaps, particularly with regard to submarines, were mentioned by the Committee at length, and my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Michelle Scrogham) was also forthright in making that point. The capability gaps in the delivery of future subs must be addressed urgently. For example, we received evidence suggesting that the production of certain assets was advancing at a “leisurely” pace. That needs to be addressed. Ultimately, as the Committee’s report on AUKUS highlighted, the next-generation SSN-AUKUS is incredibly important and we must ensure that we are investing at pace so that our Australian friends also have that capability at pace. For much of the time at present, we are left in a situation where many of our assets, including submarines, are in either maintenance or deep maintenance.