Strategic Defence and Security Review

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), I have a special interest in the Royal Navy, because my daughter is a serving Royal Navy officer. I can therefore empathise with the feelings that she and the other naval families experienced at Brize Norton.

HMS Raleigh lies in my constituency. It is the Royal Navy’s premier training establishment in the south-west of England and the only naval facility in the UK responsible for the initial training of ratings. Recently—last week, in fact—it was announced that HMS Raleigh was to cut its intake by 50%. I understand that this is because people are not leaving the Navy, which means that there is no room for people to come in. However, my main concern—I hope that the Minister will take note of this—is that we could end up with a future skills gap.

HMS Raleigh has many strings to its bow. The facility can boast of being home to the naval military training school, the Royal Navy’s submarine school, the defence maritime logistics school, the Royal Marine band and the national Sea Cadets. The firefighting facilities located at the site regularly play host to fire brigades from throughout the United Kingdom. They develop their skills in conjunction with other Government agencies, such as the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, in order to practice combating incidents of fire, chemical release or industrial accidents on vessels or structures at sea. Other public bodies, such as the police force, also make regular use of the facilities.

Hon. Members will also be pleased to know that the excellence provided by the staff at HMS Raleigh is recognised not just within the confines of the UK. As part of the deals to sell now much-needed Type 22 and 23 frigates to the Romanian and Chilean navies respectively, HMS Raleigh played a significant part in training the foreign crews that serve onboard. It is estimated that nearly 5% of the Romanian navy has passed through the doors of HMS Raleigh, bringing millions of pounds into the UK’s coffers in the process. Indeed, it is not just on the high seas that that is the case. The Saudi Arabian air force put nearly 50 students through the 21-week full-time training programme at Raleigh. Local families played host, providing a homely environment and boosting the local economy as well.

HMS Raleigh is a busy base and a relevant base to today’s Navy, and long may that continue. The Raleigh of 2010 remains an incredibly busy place. Indeed, the Navy states that because of the sheer volume of courses run at the site—the figure is in the hundreds—at facilities such as those that I mentioned, throughput runs at about 44,000 per annum, a figure far larger than the Royal Navy itself. Building work at the base has been almost continuous over the past decade, costing hundreds of millions of pounds simply to accommodate new recruits and customers in clean, pleasant accommodation. When taking into account the population of Torpoint, the town of about 9,000 residents where HMS Raleigh is situated, it is clear that the base always has, and always will have, a highly significant economic impact on the town and the surrounding area. That is a key point: local pubs, taxi firms, bed and breakfasts, and shops all benefit from HMS Raleigh.

I hope that the Minister will take the message back to the Secretary of State that the people in my constituency are very anxious at this time of great upheaval and uncertainty. They rely heavily on HMS Raleigh for employment. I hope that the Secretary of State will ensure that this tremendous training base remains, because it not only trains superb recruits for the Royal Navy, but provides a great deal of income for the Ministry of Defence.