Trident Renewal

Debate between Oliver Colvile and Julian Lewis

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile]

That was what I was coming to. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has repeatedly said, such an approach would mean that we would have only a part-time deterrent. We would depend on a part-time enemy. No doubt we could also go on holiday all the time.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

May I commend to my hon. Friend and the whole House the lyrics of a song that was prevalent at the Liberal Democrats’ last conference, which came from their own side? Sadly, I have not committed all the verses to memory, but they were wonderful, and the chorus was, “We believe in a part-time submarine.” It was sung to the tune of “Yellow Submarine”, made famous by the Beatles.

[Oliver Colvile]

I thank my hon. Friend for that.

Scrapping or even reducing the number of nuclear submarines would have a devastating impact on my constituency and on Plymouth’s travel-to-work economy and skills base. No SNP, Green or Plaid Cymru Members have talked about the importance of nuclear submarines to my constituency and I hope that my comments on Plymouth will be in accord with the views of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), who is unable to comment as she sits on the Opposition Front Bench. In the past we have had a similar approach and I am sure that we will continue to do so. I hope that I and my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View, all of whom have constituencies in the Plymouth travel-to-work area, speak with one voice on this issue, which involves Devonport’s future. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister again for the £2.6 billion of investment in the future of Devonport announced last September. That will secure 3,000 to 4,000 jobs over the next four years.

Retaining Britain’s nuclear deterrent, a strategic concept that seeks to prevent war, is a key element of and cornerstone in the defence of our country. It is a vital ingredient of our membership of NATO and of our relationship with the United States, which is our strongest ally, and it ensures our seat on the UN Security Council. It helps to prevent attacks from would-be aggressors and stops other countries using their nuclear arsenal to try to blackmail us. The United Kingdom is an island nation that is dependent on protecting its trade routes, which means that we need a strong Royal Navy.

Our ownership of this highly successful deterrent came about after the bombing of Hiroshima, which brought about the very dramatic final phase of world war two. I note that there has been no mention in the debate of Hiroshima, the event that ended the second world war. Like a slap in the face, it shocked the world with its catastrophic implications, which were so dramatic that no one has ever dared to push international conflicts to a point at which any country has used nuclear weapons again.

The nuclear deterrent has been Britain’s most effective insurance policy and it continues to play a significant role in maintaining peace throughout the world. Unpredictable countries such as Iran and North Korea, which are threatening to develop nuclear capabilities, make it vital that Britain retains its nuclear deterrent. It continues to act as a pressure point—conventional capabilities cannot and will not have the same deterrent effect as nuclear weapons. To quote the Prime Minister, it is the “ultimate weapon of defence”.

Indeed, the development of nuclear weapons since Hiroshima continues to have a significant impact on those veterans who were dispatched to Christmas Island, Montebello and Malden Island to take part in the tests that made the nuclear deterrent we are discussing today possible. I pay tribute to them and encourage the Government to try to look after those people. We must remember that we owe them a great debt of gratitude and it would be most helpful if my hon. Friend the Minister paid tribute to them when he winds up the debate.

For Plymouth, the deterrent is not just a defence weapon but a key part of our local economy, as well as of the national economy. It helps us retain our skills base, especially in Devonport, which is part of my constituency, and, of course, in Barrow-in-Furness. Devonport dockyard, which is responsible for refuelling and refitting our nuclear submarines, is a vital part of our local economy as more than 25,000 people in the Devonport travel-to-work area depend on defence for their livelihood. The mind-boggling announcement by the Liberal Democrats that the UK should move away from a continuous at-sea deterrent and reduce the number of submarines from four to three would have a devastating impact on my city’s economy. Their insistence that the maingate decision should be delayed until after 2015 has produced real uncertainty in our local economy.

If the ill-minded desire of the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish national party, Plaid Cymru and the Greens were to become reality, it could damage not only the livelihoods of 25,000 people but the skills base in a city with a low-skills and low-wage economy. It would damage the job prospects of those young people who are at the university technical college in Devonport, which is set to give youngsters an education that will eventually deliver a skilled work force who want to be employed in our dockyard. The measure would be most unhelpful.

A reduction in the number of nuclear submarines would mean less refitting work, and our highly skilled work force in the dockyard would have to move elsewhere in the country, which would also be problematic for the local economy. Given the importance of Devonport to the south-west economy and the defence of our nation, I find it extraordinary that the majority of the smaller parties in the House are doing everything they can to delay maingate for the Trident replacement. It is quite apparent that the future security of our country is going to be one of the bargaining tools that they can use in any negotiations that they have with Labour, should the result of the general election be a score draw, as happened in 2010.

Sadly, the leader of the Labour party has not said that the future of four nuclear submarines and a continuous at-sea deterrent is not up for negotiation in any potential coalition or supply and demand agreement. At least we now know that only an outright Conservative victory will ensure that our country will continue to play a significant part in global politics and that we have the necessary tools to defend ourselves. That is why I will continue to use the Royal Navy’s truly excellent toast from the Napoleonic wars: confusion to the enemy on this issue so that we can ensure that Drake’s drum can be put away for the next five years and we will not hear a drum beat for many a year yet.

Armed Forces (Investment)

Debate between Oliver Colvile and Julian Lewis

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Oliver Colvile]

Or the DUP—but let me deal with the other two.

Earlier today I looked at the Liberal Democrats’ website. They are still saying:

“Britain's nuclear deterrent, which consists of four Trident submarines, is out-dated and expensive. It is a relic of the Cold War and not up-to-date in 21st century Britain. Nowadays, most of our threats come from individual terrorist groups, not communist countries with nuclear weapons.

The Liberal Democrats are the only main party willing to face up to those facts.

The UK has four Trident submarines on constant patrol, which are nearing the end of their life. A decision needs to be made about what we do to replace them.”

I emphasise that I am quoting the Liberal Democrats:

“It would be extremely expensive and unnecessary to replace all four submarines, so we propose to replace some of the submarines instead. They would not be on constant patrol but could be deployed if the threat from a nuclear-armed country increased.”

They quite obviously have taken no notice of what has been going on in Ukraine.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a crucial point. It is worth adding that the Liberal Democrats, when sending a submarine to sea, would send it unarmed, wait for a crisis to arise and then sail the submarine back to its home port in order to put the nuclear weapons on board, presumably by the grace and favour of the country now threatening us.

[Oliver Colvile]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. The Liberal Democrats are making it clear that they want to reduce the number of submarines and they might make that a condition of being in any coalition with the Labour party.

On Saturday, Nicola Sturgeon, the new leader of the SNP, told her party conference:

“My pledge to Scotland today is simple—the SNP will never, ever, put the Tories into government.”

She added that Labour would

“have to think again about putting a new generation of Trident nuclear weapons on the river Clyde.”

On Andrew Marr’s programme on Sunday, Mr Findlay, a candidate to be leader of the Scottish Labour party, set out a radical agenda for his party. He confirmed that under his leadership Scottish Labour would oppose Trident on the Clyde. He confirmed that that had been Scottish Labour’s policy for some little while. That is in line with the position of the Scottish trades unions.

I very much hope that the Minister will confirm that a future Conservative-led Government will remain committed to four continuous at-sea deterrent submarines. My concern is that if the nuclear submarines are thrown out of Scotland, the Government of the day might decide that our submarine base and dockyard should be relocated from Devonport to another site. Some 25,000 people in the travel-to-work area of Devonport depend on defence for their jobs.

Royal Navy Ships

Debate between Oliver Colvile and Julian Lewis

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) has long been an articulate commentator on Army issues; more recently he has taken up the cudgels on behalf of the Royal Navy. If I were in charge of the Royal Air Force, I would look to my laurels, because I am sure that it is next on his agenda. To give the Minister maximum time to consider my questions, I will ask them at the beginning of my contribution rather than at the end, so he will be at liberty to ignore anything I say afterwards.

First, when the main gate contracts are signed some time next year after the Scottish referendum, will a minimum of 13 frigates be ordered? Secondly, does the Minister accept that the unit cost of new frigates will be much cheaper if all 13 are ordered at the outset? Thirdly, eight of the 13 frigates will specialise in anti-submarine warfare. Was that figure derived from doctrinal consideration, and if so, what is it? My concern is that if we are to have seven frigates available for that purpose, we would need 10, not eight. I think doctrine requires at least seven to be available. Fourthly, how many of the new frigates would be necessary to escort a taskforce, whether that is an amphibious or carrier taskforce? Finally, what consideration will be given to adoption of the plug-and-play method of warship development that my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East referred to, and the importance of getting hulls in the water first and then building up capacity over the lifetime of the vessel?

In the time available, I hope to speak about strategy, numbers and design concept. You have drawn the short straw, Mr Hood, in chairing this debate, because when I made my maiden speech on defence in the Queen’s Speech debate in 1997, you spoke after me, and were kind enough to predict that the House would be hearing a lot more from me on defence in the years to come. You were absolutely right, and I have been banging on about it ever since, although I had not expected to be making the same sort of repetitious points and representations to a Conservative-led Government as I did to the Labour Government during the more than six years in which I was my party’s spokesman on the Royal Navy, but there you are. Politics is a strange profession.

[Oliver Colvile]

My hon. Friend has a great deal to contribute, because he had a distinguished career as a reservist in the Royal Navy.

[Dr Lewis]

The distinction that I achieved cannot be overemphasised: I advanced from probationer ordinary seaman to full ordinary seaman. I was very proud to be one, because even in those days—it was from 1979 to 1982, or thereabouts—I was too old to be an officer cadet. I feel the bus pass jingling in my pocket.

Yesterday, I took the day off and had the great pleasure of travelling to Southampton university at the invitation of Commander Chris Ling, commanding officer of Thunderer Squadron, which is the defence technical undergraduate scheme at the university, and Lieutenant Amie Jackson. She—I emphasise “she”—is the commanding officer of the warship HMS Blazer, which is attached to the university’s Royal Navy unit. It was wonderful to celebrate with them the opening of their new joint headquarters at the National Oceanography Centre. Looking at the fine young people who are coming through the system and having a first-class maritime education there, I could not help wondering how many opportunities they would have, and how many naval vessels would be available for them to serve in, in the years ahead, when they go on, as so many of them do, to professional careers in the Royal Navy.

I said that I would talk a bit about strategy. I have always acknowledged on a cross-party basis that the concepts of Labour’s 1998 strategic defence review were very sound. They recognised that we were no longer facing as our primary concern the cold war threat on the continent, and that if our forces were engaged, it would be in more far-flung theatres. As we were no longer an empire and no longer had a string of bases all over the world, it would be necessary to have a portable, movable sea base that we could use to take our joint forces to the theatre in which they were engaged. That seemed sound then, and it is sound today. That concept required two sorts of taskforce: one to allow air power to be projected from the sea, hence the aircraft carriers; and the other to enable military power to be landed from the sea, hence the amphibious taskforce. Broadly speaking, we have the central elements of those taskforces.

We know that the aircraft carriers are moving steadily forward, whatever financial peaks and troughs they have had in their chequered history, and that they will come to fruition. I would like to predict that the Government will bring both carriers into service, because it would be sheer madness to build one of the largest ships that the Royal Navy has ever seen and not deploy it.

The Albion, the Bulwark, and our Bay-class ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service form the core of the amphibious taskforce, and again, it would be interesting to know—although I do not expect an answer today—what plans there are to think about the next generation of assault ships to follow the Albion and the Bulwark. However, the point about the two taskforces, and the relevance to today’s debate, is that they will have to be protected against air threats, surface threats and submarine threats. As I said before, if we need a certain number of frigates—let us say as many as four to protect a taskforce, if it were in a serious regional conflict—given the roles that the frigates will have to perform in other areas, including ongoing and standing tasks, I find myself querying how the idea that we will generate a minimum of seven available anti-submarine warfare frigates from only eight out of the 13 will work.

I shall say a brief word about numbers. I start from the standpoint that we are simply not spending enough on defence. I know all the economic arguments about that, but the fact is that as a proportion of gross domestic product, defence spending has declined too far down our list of priorities. Spending was between 4% and 5% during the cold war years. When Labour came into office in 1997, it went from 2.9% to 2.6%, then to 2.8%. Then, in successive years, it was 2.7%, 2.7% again, 2.5%, 2.5% again, and so on. That looked fairly consistent, but the problem was that during that period, we were engaged in fighting two large regional conflicts, and the Treasury was not prepared to stump up the extra money to fund those conflicts in full. As a result, we found the core military budget being eaten away by the financing of current conflicts, and since then, under the present Government, the situation has not improved. I believe that we are down to something like 2.1% of GDP at present, and I feel that that is the root of the problem.

At the time of the strategic defence review that set out those concepts, the Labour Government proposed reducing the combined number of frigates and destroyers from 35 to 32. The admirals gritted their teeth and accepted that, but it quickly emerged that 32 had actually gone down to 31, and the then Secretary of State, Geoff Hoon, formulated what I later dubbed the “Hoon excuse”, which was, “It doesn’t really matter that we have lost an extra frigate, because they are more powerful than they used to be, so 31 ships can do what 32 used to do.” That, I am afraid, was the start of a very slippery slope.

The next bite taken out of the total by the Labour Government took the number down from 31 to 25. I remember standing up in the House of Commons at the beginning of 2007 waxing eloquent about persistent rumours that the Government intended to mothball, if not permanently dispose of, another half a dozen frigates to take the total down to 19. In the end, that gradually slipped away, but a couple of Type 23 frigates were paid off, and effectively the total went down to 23 from 25. It took the Conservative-led coalition coming in before we went down to 19 in the 2010 SDSR, yet the concept set out in 1998 remained basically sound: we needed to be able to fulfil certain standing tasks, to protect a mobile base, and to escort an amphibious taskforce or an aircraft carrier taskforce. I do not see what doctrinal developments since then justify such a radical reduction in the numbers.

That leads to me to my final point, about the design concept, which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth East mentioned. It is about whether it might be worth looking at the other five more general-purpose hulls that are proposed to bring the total number of frigates up to 13, and whether it might be worth considering doing something simpler to get more hulls in the water from which we can regenerate the surface fleet. Back in February 2005, in putting forward that concept, I was unwise enough to say that, really, the replacement general-purpose frigates ought to be “as cheap as chips”, which is not the sort of phrase that a proud Navy wants to hear. However, the point is based on an important development that I referred to in my opening questions—the idea of plug and play.

When the Type 45s were designed and put into service, they had a very large gymnasium. Why? Because they were designed in such a way that at a future stage in their life cycle, when we could afford it, we would be able to plug into that large space a module of land attack cruise missiles, which would hugely increase the ships’ power, even though we felt that we could not afford to do so at the beginning. It is perfectly possible to design ships that are relatively simple, but that have that capacity; I am extremely glad to see the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) nodding in agreement. We are very capable of upgrading those ships in their lifetime, and adding to their capacity. Perhaps it is too late now—I do not know—but we could at least try to keep the number of hulls a bit larger and lessen the complexity a bit; we would then have the basis for upgrading the quality of the vessels during their lifetime.

Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme

Debate between Oliver Colvile and Julian Lewis

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Dr Lewis]

Exactly. That is precisely how people who have engaged in the scheme have understood their responsibilities, with very few exceptions. When one considers that the final stage of the scheme is membership of the Royal College of Defence Studies, that is quite remarkable. It may not be common knowledge, but those of us who are fortunate enough to be parliamentary members of the RCDS are taken on as full members and are considered to remain members for life. The essence of the RCDS course is meeting people, learning from them and establishing formal and informal contacts that will stand one in good stead in relation to one’s understanding of defence developments at home and abroad.

To inject a slightly quizzical note into my speech, that is why I was a little concerned recently to read an article about the eminent military historian Sir Max Hastings being refused the sort of informal contact that for many years he and many others have been allowed with senior serving personnel in the MOD network. That runs counter to the spirit of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, but I hope that it is simply a case of over-zealous application of some rule against leaking things to the media.

Certainly, if we reach a situation in which people like Sir Max Hastings—eminent historians and public commentators—cannot secure the degree of access that they used to have, or indeed if a similar bar is put on hon. Members, all I can say is that Ministers should take a deep breath, look at what has happened with the armed forces parliamentary scheme and realise that a tunnel vision approach to access by civilians, whether they are reporters or Members of Parliament, to the military is counter-productive.

The armed forces parliamentary scheme is a boon to hon. Members with little knowledge of defence, as it is to hon. Members when, as sometimes happens, their political party goes through a phase of anti-militarism. There was a period—thank goodness, long in the past—when the Labour party shifted in a unilateralist direction, and I am sure that it was very valuable to those courageous members of the Labour party who did not go in that direction to be able to recharge their intellectual batteries by having access to such a scheme. It is important that Members of Parliament who want to support the armed forces have the intellectual ammunition, on a non-partisan basis, to speak with authority about them.

I conclude by pointing out that the scale of the scheme when it started was for two Members of Parliament to visit each of the three armed forces, with two more visiting the Royal Marines, which is of course a subset—some would say, a superset—of the Royal Navy.

[Oliver Colvile]

A very fine subset of the Royal Navy.

[Dr Lewis]

Indeed, which was the reason for my quick interjection of the word “superset”.

The scheme then moved to having five Members per service, and it now has very large numbers. We measure the effectiveness of a scheme or organisation by the demand for it. There is a huge demand for this scheme, and we are very grateful that the supply will continue to meet the increased demand.