UK Amphibious Capability

Wayne David Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) on securing this important debate and on her first-rate speech.

This is one of the few Westminster Hall debates I can recall in which there has been unanimity—well, virtual unanimity—among contributing Members, a point made well by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon). Every Member who has spoken in this debate holds the firm view that the defence of this country requires an amphibious capability; if HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark are scrapped and 1,000 Royal Marines are lost, that capability will effectively come to an end. We have heard from right hon. and hon. Members with great knowledge and expertise, whose views largely echo those of leading figures in the armed forces, including the former First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir George Zambellas. His evidence to the Defence Committee last week has already been quoted, but I shall quote it again:

“Nobody in the world of complex warfare, especially for an island nation that delivers force from the sea, thinks that a reduction in the sophisticated end of amphibiosity is a good idea.”

General Sir Richard Barrons, former commander of the Joint Forces Command, said that we run

“the risk of a ridiculous zero-sum discussion...the nonsense of culling marines to buy more sailors”.

He also described

“the idea that if the Navy needs to…find more sailors, the… thing to do is to cull some of the finest infantry in the world—the Royal Marines”

as a “line of madness”. A number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson), have quoted those words, which I am sure we all agree were powerful and well considered.

Since the end of the second world war, our amphibious capability has been used more than 10 times in military action, from Korea and Suez to the Falklands and Sierra Leone. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) noted, it has also been used to great effect in humanitarian efforts, including recently in Operation Ruman in the Caribbean. The Royal Marines have been in almost continuous operation in 30 different campaigns. There were pressures to remove our amphibious capability after our withdrawal from east of Suez in the 1970s and early 1980s, but common sense has always prevailed.

Let us not forget that our amphibious shipping and the Royal Marine command brigade were crucial in liberating the Falkland Islands—a point made well by the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and in the powerful speech of the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty). After the Falklands war, it was agreed that the UK needed to maintain a minimum amphibious force, but since the 2010 SDSR we have seen gradual reductions in capacity.

[Mr Sweeney]

Labour’s 1998 strategic defence review defined the optimum capability for amphibiosity in the UK as not just two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, but six Point-class sea-lift ships, one landing helicopter dock on HMS Ocean, two Albion-class landing platform docks and four Bay-class landing ship docks. That assumption should not have changed; why has it? Why has the capability been cut since then? We have had no explanation from the Minister.

[Wayne David]

My hon. Friend makes his point well; I agree absolutely. Let us also bear in mind that the marines have recently lost 400 personnel, and it is rumoured that the newly refitted HMS Ocean will be sold to Brazil for a very modest £80 million.

That brings us to where we are today. We learned from the press last week that the new Secretary of State for Defence did not believe that the cuts to Albion, Bulwark and the marines could be justified, and was asking the Treasury for an extra £2 billion to help to fill the gap in the MOD’s finances and ward off cuts to the Navy. However, we read this weekend that the Treasury had given him the cold shoulder, saying emphatically that no more money would be available. Some reports have even suggested that he did not even make such a request to the Treasury.

Will the Minister clarify exactly what is going on? Is it the MOD’s view that—as all hon. Members in this debate have argued and so many defence experts have stated— there is no rationale for effectively ending the Navy’s amphibious capability? If she is prepared to say that, she will have the support of all her party and the Opposition. Surely we all need to recognise that this issue is above crude party politics; it is about our country’s ability to defend itself effectively, which it cannot do without an amphibious capability.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Harriett Baldwin)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) on securing this debate—the second debate of hers that I have replied to in a week, which truly demonstrates her passion for and dedication to our armed forces. She is not only a member of the Defence Committee, but chair of the all-party group on the armed forces covenant and deputy chair for the Royal Navy of the all-party group for the armed forces, which you chair, Mr Gray.

The 11 Back Benchers who spoke in the debate unanimously supported the UK’s amphibious capability in the 21st century. As so many right hon. and hon. Members said, our amphibious capability is a vital component of our nation’s power projection capabilities. The Royal Navy’s LPD-class ships HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark provide afloat command and control facilities and capabilities needed to deploy and sustain the lead commando group ashore by air and sea. They can embark one large helicopter or up to three medium helicopters on the flight deck and carry the equipment required to support aircraft operations. In addition, Lyme Bay, Mounts Bay and Cardigan Bay, the Bay-class ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service, provide the capacity and capability to deploy our expeditionary strike forces. I am sure all hon. Members present thank the crew of RFA Mounts Bay for their incredible work over the summer and autumn, having been pre-positioned for hurricane season in the Caribbean. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]

The UK’s amphibious capability will be further enhanced by our new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. As we stated in the 2015 strategic defence and security review, we will enhance a Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier to support our amphibious capability.

Colleagues have asked about HMS Ocean. Just to clarify matters again for the record, SDSR 15 allocated £60 million to optimise the QEC carriers, to meet the demands of the landing platform helicopter role, including the communication systems for amphibious operations, improving services on carriers for the Royal Marines, providing ammunition storage and expanding helicopter operating capacity. The initial operating capability for the helos is in summer 2018. This commitment demonstrates the importance that the Government place on the future of our amphibious forces and the vital role that they will play in the defence of our nation.

An essential part of that future is, as we have heard, our elite amphibious commando force, the Royal Marines, and Members have rightly paid tribute to them. The Royal Marines are held at very high readiness, trained for worldwide rapid response and often operate in difficult or dangerous circumstances. So far, they have given us 353 years of unbroken service, in support of the UK’s national interests and often in the defence of others.

Members should note that, as of 1 October 2017, the Royal Marines’ full-time trained strength is approximately 6,520, which is 99.3% of its 6,570 liability. We will continue to have the appropriate number of frontline Royal Marines to achieve all taskings, and we will ensure that the Royal Marines are properly trained and equipped to perform a wide range of crucial tasks that we ask them to undertake.

This debate has no doubt been prompted by speculation in the media on the future of the amphibious ships. As Members will be aware, the Government have initiated work on a national security capability review, which is being conducted to ensure the UK’s investment in national security capabilities is as joined-up, effective and efficient as possible for the threats that we face in the 21st century. This work is being led by the National Security Adviser, with individual strands being taken forward by cross-departmental teams, and the Ministry of Defence is contributing to this review and considering how we can best spend what is a rising defence budget, in order to support it.

We are indeed committed to increasing the £36 billion defence budget by at least 0.5% above inflation every year for the rest of this Parliament. Indeed, we are one of only six NATO allies who are currently meeting the guideline to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence, and we are also one of only 13—

[Wayne David]

Will the Minister give way?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I am very conscious of time here, but I will give way very briefly.

[Wayne David]

I thank the Minister for giving way. She has talked about speculation, but will she confirm or deny the press reports that the new Secretary of State for Defence has asked the Treasury for more money?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I can confirm that there have been press reports. [Laughter.] I can also confirm that we are one of only 13 NATO countries that meet the guideline to spend 20% of our defence budget on major equipment and research and development. I can also confirm that the Ministry of Defence will spend £178 billion on equipment and associated support between 2016 and 2026.