Type 31 Frigate

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Monday 3rd April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my noble friend makes some extremely important points about the steel industry in this country. It is worth reflecting that if one looks at the Queen Elizabeth carrier programme, 88% of the steel that went into that carrier programme was from British steel mills, which indicates that we are competitive in world terms.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords,

“Our national security and our economic security go hand-in-hand”.


I am not quoting from the Prime Minister’s letter to Donald Tusk—those were the opening words of the MoD’s single departmental plan in 2015. Promoting defence exports was the clear objective. Sir John Parker, whom the Minister has already quoted, and who wrote the national shipbuilding strategy, said that not enough went into the export market for ships, and that the Type 31E would have export potential. He added that they should be built “urgently”. Is it not therefore a no-brainer? Should we not follow Sir John’s advice, build the ships our Navy needs now, and gain the export opportunities for British shipbuilders?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, Sir John made some very compelling recommendations, which we are seriously addressing. Broadly, they were to inject greater grip and pace into procurement and construction of ships, to make the Government a better customer, to make industry a stronger and more efficient supplier, and to create scope for exports in warship building, thus feeding into the prosperity agenda. Those were all very sensible recommendations.