The Defence Committee held an introductory session on November 14
with the Defence Secretary
Extract
Q77 Mr
Francois: Lastly, SSNs. It was all over the internet a
couple of months ago that we did not have a single nuclear attack
submarine at sea for the first time in living memory. We have six
in the fleet—five Astutes, two more in build, and one very old
T-class. It is pretty embarrassing for the Royal Navy
not to have a nuclear attack submarine at sea, not least in the
face of our American allies. What will you do about that?
: First of all, I have
already visited part of the manufacturing process on the
Rolls-Royce side of things to see how we can speed things up.
Secondly, obviously you would expect me to say that we never
comment on our deployment, other than to say we were able to meet
all our NATO commitments throughout that period of time. One of
the things I think was most interesting is the lead times and
quality of the equipment, which is the thing that hurts us every
time. I was looking at some really advanced manufacturing where,
for example, the welding—one of the big skill shortages—becomes
automated in places. I am a self-confessed geek, and I would like
to see more technology used to speed up production processes, in
order that we are not caught short with these things. But I
should stress that we were able to keep our operational—
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