Lord Touhig
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HMS “Ocean”
Lord Touhig Excerpts(7 years, 6 months ago)
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Earl Howe
I am sure my noble friend will be pleased to know we have already taken delivery of five of the F35s and have announced an accelerated buying programme to allow us to embark up to 24 of these fantastic fifth-generation aircraft by 2023. When my noble friend sees the “Queen Elizabeth” coming into Portsmouth, as it will next year, he will be very proud of the capability that this country can offer in terms of naval power.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, the role of HMS “Ocean” has been to provide the marines with a capability to deploy on land using landing craft and helicopters, and I understand that in future this will be provided by modifying one of the new Elizabeth-class carriers. Can the Minister say what these modifications will entail and how much they will cost? As has already been said, the Government have spent £65 million on refitting “Ocean” only to decommission it. They also spent £16 million on refitting RFA “Diligence”, our only at-sea repair ship, only to put it up for sale. That means they have spent £81 million refitting two ships in order to scrap them. What does this tell us about the Government’s long-term naval planning—that there is no long-term planning, but simply an endless waste of taxpayers’ money?
Earl Howe
I can reassure the noble Lord there is a great deal of long-term planning, as I witnessed myself at last week’s Admiralty board. He asked about the sequence of programming for the new carriers. The first of the carriers, HMS “Queen Elizabeth”, will enter service in 2018, after which she will conduct flying trials, initially with helicopters and then with the F35B Lightning II aircraft. We will deliver an initial carrier strike capability by 2020, but in parallel we will be developing our carriers to deliver amphibious assaults with Royal Marines and battlefield helicopters as well as to mount global counterterrorism strikes. I hope the noble Lord will agree that there is a logical sequencing programme in train.