Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Rawmarsh and Conisbrough)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his Department's press release entitled New Golden Age of shipbuilding as new UK-built warships boost Navy building programme to up to 28 ships and submarines, published on 14 May 2024, what the expected in-service date will be for the first Multi-Role Support Ship.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Funding for the concept phase of Multi Role Support Ship (MRSS) has been approved by HM Treasury. I can confirm that the platform will be procured through the new Integrated Procurement Model (IPM), which I recently announced. As such, the next step in the programme will be for me to receive and review the Independent Advice Note (IAN) on MRSS which will inform the concept and design phases of the programme. As I said in my Oral Statement of 28th February, announcing the IPM, the aim of this note is “to provide a credible second opinion for Ministers to weigh alongside the military’s proposed requirement” (Hansard ref).
The IAN will provide advice on key policy choices, to ensure we set the programme up for success from the off. In particular, this is to core policy issues are transparently considered at the earliest stage, and then locked down as far as possible, so that the remaining procurement stages can proceed at pace, and in a context of underlying policy certainty. Policy areas to be informed by the IAN will include:
Advice would draw on expertise from across the Defence Enterprise, including, but not restricted to: DSTL; DE&S; DSE/DBT.
The total programme budget will be allocated on completion of the concept phase. It is too early in that process to have committed expenditure or actual spend.
MRSS will enter service in the early 2030s, providing highly flexible warships, able to deploy on a wider variety of operations. They will be lean-crewed, with the precise crew requirement being confirmed during the concept phase.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Rawmarsh and Conisbrough)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his Department's press release entitled New Golden Age of shipbuilding as new UK-built warships boost Navy building programme to up to 28 ships and submarines, published on 14 May 2024, what his planned timetable is to launch the competition for the first Multi Role Support Ship.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Funding for the concept phase of Multi Role Support Ship (MRSS) has been approved by HM Treasury. I can confirm that the platform will be procured through the new Integrated Procurement Model (IPM), which I recently announced. As such, the next step in the programme will be for me to receive and review the Independent Advice Note (IAN) on MRSS which will inform the concept and design phases of the programme. As I said in my Oral Statement of 28th February, announcing the IPM, the aim of this note is “to provide a credible second opinion for Ministers to weigh alongside the military’s proposed requirement” (Hansard ref).
The IAN will provide advice on key policy choices, to ensure we set the programme up for success from the off. In particular, this is to core policy issues are transparently considered at the earliest stage, and then locked down as far as possible, so that the remaining procurement stages can proceed at pace, and in a context of underlying policy certainty. Policy areas to be informed by the IAN will include:
Advice would draw on expertise from across the Defence Enterprise, including, but not restricted to: DSTL; DE&S; DSE/DBT.
The total programme budget will be allocated on completion of the concept phase. It is too early in that process to have committed expenditure or actual spend.
MRSS will enter service in the early 2030s, providing highly flexible warships, able to deploy on a wider variety of operations. They will be lean-crewed, with the precise crew requirement being confirmed during the concept phase.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Rawmarsh and Conisbrough)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his Department's press release entitled New Golden Age of shipbuilding as new UK-built warships boost Navy building programme to up to 28 ships and submarines, published on 14 May 2024, for how many of the new multi-role support ships has funding been allocated by his Department.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Funding for the concept phase of Multi Role Support Ship (MRSS) has been approved by HM Treasury. I can confirm that the platform will be procured through the new Integrated Procurement Model (IPM), which I recently announced. As such, the next step in the programme will be for me to receive and review the Independent Advice Note (IAN) on MRSS which will inform the concept and design phases of the programme. As I said in my Oral Statement of 28th February, announcing the IPM, the aim of this note is “to provide a credible second opinion for Ministers to weigh alongside the military’s proposed requirement” (Hansard ref).
The IAN will provide advice on key policy choices, to ensure we set the programme up for success from the off. In particular, this is to core policy issues are transparently considered at the earliest stage, and then locked down as far as possible, so that the remaining procurement stages can proceed at pace, and in a context of underlying policy certainty. Policy areas to be informed by the IAN will include:
Advice would draw on expertise from across the Defence Enterprise, including, but not restricted to: DSTL; DE&S; DSE/DBT.
The total programme budget will be allocated on completion of the concept phase. It is too early in that process to have committed expenditure or actual spend.
MRSS will enter service in the early 2030s, providing highly flexible warships, able to deploy on a wider variety of operations. They will be lean-crewed, with the precise crew requirement being confirmed during the concept phase.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Rawmarsh and Conisbrough)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his speech at the First Sea Lord’s Sea Power conference on 14 May 2024, what the planned in-service date is for the multi-role support ships.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Funding for the concept phase of Multi Role Support Ship (MRSS) has been approved by HM Treasury. I can confirm that the platform will be procured through the new Integrated Procurement Model (IPM), which I recently announced. As such, the next step in the programme will be for me to receive and review the Independent Advice Note (IAN) on MRSS which will inform the concept and design phases of the programme. As I said in my Oral Statement of 28th February, announcing the IPM, the aim of this note is “to provide a credible second opinion for Ministers to weigh alongside the military’s proposed requirement” (Hansard ref).
The IAN will provide advice on key policy choices, to ensure we set the programme up for success from the off. In particular, this is to core policy issues are transparently considered at the earliest stage, and then locked down as far as possible, so that the remaining procurement stages can proceed at pace, and in a context of underlying policy certainty. Policy areas to be informed by the IAN will include:
Advice would draw on expertise from across the Defence Enterprise, including, but not restricted to: DSTL; DE&S; DSE/DBT.
The total programme budget will be allocated on completion of the concept phase. It is too early in that process to have committed expenditure or actual spend.
MRSS will enter service in the early 2030s, providing highly flexible warships, able to deploy on a wider variety of operations. They will be lean-crewed, with the precise crew requirement being confirmed during the concept phase.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Rawmarsh and Conisbrough)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether the new Multi-Role Support Ships will be operated by the (a) Royal Navy and (b) Royal Fleet Auxiliary.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Funding for the concept phase of Multi Role Support Ship (MRSS) has been approved by HM Treasury. I can confirm that the platform will be procured through the new Integrated Procurement Model (IPM), which I recently announced. As such, the next step in the programme will be for me to receive and review the Independent Advice Note (IAN) on MRSS which will inform the concept and design phases of the programme. As I said in my Oral Statement of 28th February, announcing the IPM, the aim of this note is “to provide a credible second opinion for Ministers to weigh alongside the military’s proposed requirement” (Hansard ref).
The IAN will provide advice on key policy choices, to ensure we set the programme up for success from the off. In particular, this is to core policy issues are transparently considered at the earliest stage, and then locked down as far as possible, so that the remaining procurement stages can proceed at pace, and in a context of underlying policy certainty. Policy areas to be informed by the IAN will include:
Advice would draw on expertise from across the Defence Enterprise, including, but not restricted to: DSTL; DE&S; DSE/DBT.
The total programme budget will be allocated on completion of the concept phase. It is too early in that process to have committed expenditure or actual spend.
MRSS will enter service in the early 2030s, providing highly flexible warships, able to deploy on a wider variety of operations. They will be lean-crewed, with the precise crew requirement being confirmed during the concept phase.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Rawmarsh and Conisbrough)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many and what proportion of Ukrainian military personnel have been trained via Operation INTERFLEX.
Answered by Leo Docherty
Under Operation INTERFLEX, the UK along with support from its allies has trained over 40,000 Ukrainian recruits to date. This is part of the broader training programme administered by the Ukrainian Government.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Rawmarsh and Conisbrough)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, when HMS Bulwark will next deploy.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
I refer the right hon. Member to the answer I gave on 17 April 2024 to Question 21289 to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Mr Pollard).
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Rawmarsh and Conisbrough)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his Department's press release entitled New Golden Age of shipbuilding as new UK-built warships boost Navy building programme to up to 28 ships and submarines, published on 14 May 2024, where the new Multi-Role Support Ships will be built.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
As announced by the Secretary of State, it is intended that the Multi Role Support Ships will be built in the UK.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Rawmarsh and Conisbrough)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many notices to quit have been issued by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation to (a) service and (b) non service families in Service Family Accommodation properties in the UK in each month since January 2023.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Data on the number of Notices to Quit (NTQs) issued to Service personnel and their families in Service Family Accommodation (SFA) properties in the UK is available from April 2022; the implementation date of the current service contract:
Year | No of NTQs issued to Service Personnel |
April 2022 – end December 2022 | Nil |
January 2023 – December 2023 | 159 |
January 2024 – March 2024 | 5 |
A monthly breakdown of issued NTQs since January 2023 is provided below:
Month | Number of NTQs Issued to Service Personnel |
Jan 23 | 2 |
Feb 23 | 0 |
Mar 23 | 0 |
Apr 23 | 0 |
May 23 | 0 |
Jun 23 | 0 |
Jul 23 | 0 |
Aug 23 | 72 |
Sep 23 | 23 |
Oct 23 | 33 |
Nov 23 | 27 |
Dec 23 | 2 |
Jan 24 | 3 |
Feb 24 | 2 |
Mar 24 | 0 |
The Civilian Sublet Tenancy Scheme began in 2016 and no NTQs were issued until 2019. An annual breakdown of the number of NTQs that have been issued to Civilian Sublet tenants living in SFA properties in the UK is provided in the table below:
Time Period | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 (to April 16th) |
No of NTQs issued to Civilian Sublet Tenants | 14 | 3 | 459 | 95 | 92 | 98 |
A monthly breakdown of issued NTQs since January 2023 is provided below:
Month | Number of NTQ’s Issued |
Jan 23 | 11 |
Feb 23 | 1 |
Mar 23 | 5 |
Apr 23 | 9 |
May 23 | 8 |
Jun 23 | 0 |
Jul 23 | 1 |
Aug 23 | 1 |
Sep 23 | 14 |
Oct 23 | 16 |
Nov 23 | 17 |
Dec 23 | 9 |
Jan 24 | 17 |
Feb 24 | 3 |
Mar 24 | 63 |
Apr 24 (up to 16th of the month) | 15 |
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Rawmarsh and Conisbrough)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many notices to quit have been issued by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation to (a) service and (b) non service families in Service Family Accommodation properties in the UK in each year since 2010.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Data on the number of Notices to Quit (NTQs) issued to Service personnel and their families in Service Family Accommodation (SFA) properties in the UK is available from April 2022; the implementation date of the current service contract:
Year | No of NTQs issued to Service Personnel |
April 2022 – end December 2022 | Nil |
January 2023 – December 2023 | 159 |
January 2024 – March 2024 | 5 |
A monthly breakdown of issued NTQs since January 2023 is provided below:
Month | Number of NTQs Issued to Service Personnel |
Jan 23 | 2 |
Feb 23 | 0 |
Mar 23 | 0 |
Apr 23 | 0 |
May 23 | 0 |
Jun 23 | 0 |
Jul 23 | 0 |
Aug 23 | 72 |
Sep 23 | 23 |
Oct 23 | 33 |
Nov 23 | 27 |
Dec 23 | 2 |
Jan 24 | 3 |
Feb 24 | 2 |
Mar 24 | 0 |
The Civilian Sublet Tenancy Scheme began in 2016 and no NTQs were issued until 2019. An annual breakdown of the number of NTQs that have been issued to Civilian Sublet tenants living in SFA properties in the UK is provided in the table below:
Time Period | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 (to April 16th) |
No of NTQs issued to Civilian Sublet Tenants | 14 | 3 | 459 | 95 | 92 | 98 |
A monthly breakdown of issued NTQs since January 2023 is provided below:
Month | Number of NTQ’s Issued |
Jan 23 | 11 |
Feb 23 | 1 |
Mar 23 | 5 |
Apr 23 | 9 |
May 23 | 8 |
Jun 23 | 0 |
Jul 23 | 1 |
Aug 23 | 1 |
Sep 23 | 14 |
Oct 23 | 16 |
Nov 23 | 17 |
Dec 23 | 9 |
Jan 24 | 17 |
Feb 24 | 3 |
Mar 24 | 63 |
Apr 24 (up to 16th of the month) | 15 |