Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of
the material state of the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (The ) (Con)
My Lords, the Royal Navy continues to meet its operational
commitments, both at home and abroad. Having two aircraft
carriers means that HMS “Prince of Wales” has quickly prepared to
deploy in place of HMS “Queen Elizabeth”. She has sailed from
Portsmouth this afternoon to join the NATO exercise Steadfast
Defender. Following initial investigations, HMS “Queen Elizabeth”
will be required to sail for Rosyth in Scotland to undergo
repairs for an issue with her starboard propeller shaft coupling,
which will be carried out in due course. Her issue is not the
same as that experienced by HMS “Prince of Wales” back in
2022.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Minister has made it quite clear that the “Prince
of Wales” has now sailed. It is unfortunate that they prepped
everyone for a sailing yesterday and that did not happen, but I
understand why that was the case. Beatty very famously said, as
his second battle-cruiser blew up at the Battle of Jutland,
“There seems to be something wrong with our”—expletive—“ships
today”. That is not the case with the carriers, but I am very
concerned about the initial problem the “Prince of Wales” had
some almost two years ago with the shaft misalignment. Will the
Minister tell us how we are going to be able to get some payment
from the people who built the ship? To have accepted it with a
misaligned shaft was bad, and it was badly built. Somehow, we
should be able to get money back from the builders, rather than
the UK public paying for that damage.
The (Con)
I thank the noble Lord, and I concur that the Royal Navy has
worked extremely fast to be able to move the “Prince of Wales”
out in place of the “Queen Elizabeth” after only eight days—it is
a remarkable feat, and we should be grateful to them all. As far
as her propellor shaft problem, my understanding is that it is
ongoing and subject to continued negotiations.
(Con)
My Lords, nobody knows better than me how much the noble Lord,
Lord West, enjoys his little bit of impish mischief when
discussing Royal Naval assets. I say to the Minister that, while
technical malfunctions are, of course, regrettable—and I am
pleased to hear that the “Prince of Wales” has now sailed—it must
be acknowledged that both aircraft carriers have made significant
contributions to our naval capability. They have been a huge
credit to us across the globe, and that is an important part not
just of our RN operational capability but of our global soft
power.
The (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that confirmation and entirely agree
with it. It is worth saying that HMS “Prince of Wales” will reach
Steadfast Defender before the commencement of this extremely
important NATO exercise, involving the 31 nations of NATO and
Sweden as well.
(LD)
My Lords, the material state of the Royal Navy’s aircraft
carriers should be a national shame. Without these aircraft
carriers being in a suitable state, the Navy cannot carry out its
necessary defence duties. At this stage, it appears to be
difficult to determine whether the issues are due to fundamental
design flaws or with the amount of testing time allocated when
these vehicles are trialled. In the light of this, would the
Minister support a review into the procedures for routine
maintenance checks on HMS vessels?
The (Con)
My Lords, I answered this question the other day. These are
highly technical pieces of equipment. We carry out regular tests,
and it was a regular test which determined that the “Queen
Elizabeth” should not sail. The advice was that it should not
sail, and the sensible thing to do was to use the other aircraft
carrier. That is exactly what we have done.
(Con)
My Lords, further to the request from the noble Lord, Lord West,
that compensation should be paid by the manufacturers of these
aircraft carriers for a total sum of £6.2 billion, does my noble
friend accept that BAE S might not be very good at building ships
but it is very good at writing contracts?
The (Con)
My Lords, that is not something I am particularly expert in, but
I can see that it is important to make certain that a contract
has the correct clauses to ensure that, when things go wrong, the
placer of the contract is suitably covered.
(Lab)
My Lords, I refer your Lordships’ House to my register of
interests, specifically my ties to the Royal Navy. Our aircraft
carriers are a core component of our conventional deterrent.
While we welcome the fact that the “Prince of Wales” has
deployed—we thank the crew for so quickly changing their
plans—can the Minister tell the House what message it sends to
our adversaries that we have had such struggles with our carriers
in recent days? What assurances can he give your Lordships’ House
that the carrier is able to complete this deployment in full,
without further maintenance issues?
The (Con)
My Lords, that is precisely the question I asked earlier in a
briefing. I am assured that the carrier which has left to join
Steadfast Defender will certainly fulfil its commitments, and
that the “Queen Elizabeth” is on her way to dry dock to find out
exactly what is wrong.
(Con)
My Lords, I am a simple soldier, but I do not underestimate the
complexities of trying to get carriers to sea, not least marrying
the personnel issues with the mechanical. My concern, though, is
a slightly different question. Does my noble friend feel that the
MoD’s attitude to risk is currently in balance? From my
experience over a number of years now, our attitude to risk seems
to be that we are becoming ever more averse to it. Of course if a
propeller is not working, a warship cannot go to sea, but it
seems that ever smaller incidents prevent principled actions
happening because we are becoming so risk-averse when many of
these risks could be mitigated and ships could get to sea.
The (Con)
My noble friend raises an extremely interesting point. As I think
many noble Lords know, I have come in from the private sector
relatively recently, where the concept of risk is considered
completely differently from how it is within government, and
certainly within the Ministry of Defence. I fully understand
that, when you are dealing with people’s lives, you want to
minimise the risk as far as you possibly can, but there comes a
point where you have to get the risk-return in balance. I am not
certain that we have got that right in government yet.
(CB)
Could the Minister update the House as to when aircraft suitable
for flying from these very expensive aircraft carriers will be
ready to be deployed?
The (Con)
My understanding is that there are aircraft on board the carrier
now.
(LD)
Could the Minister tell us how many other UK vessels are
available to accompany and defend our aircraft carrier going to
the Red Sea?
The (Con)
My Lords, the answer to that question is that there is planned
maintenance and a certain amount of ships are out of service at
any one time. However, force protection is considered paramount
at all times, and there is sufficient cover to ensure that is the
case.
(Con)
My noble friend raised the question of risk in the Ministry of
Defence. Is there not also the question of efficiency,
particularly an ongoing question of the efficiency of procurement
in the Ministry of Defence? This is a vital issue, given the
state of the world at the moment. Will he take this point to his
friend the Minister in the department so that we can consider
this carefully?
The (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that. I certainly will; the question
of procurement is a deep and difficult one to get your hands
around, but it is certainly something we should all take very
seriously.
(LD)
My Lords, in the light of this discussion, and the usual concerns
of the noble Lord, Lord West, what discussions are the Government
and the Ministry of Defence having, in the light of the comments
from a potential presidential candidate in the United States
about backing off from NATO or potentially encouraging Russia to
attack certain NATO members?
The (Con)
I am sure that all noble Lords will find that particular
gentleman’s comments extraordinary. I assure all noble Lords that
the Ministry of Defence is looking into all possibilities very
seriously.
(Lab)
My Lords, can I come back to the Question posed by my noble
friend Lord West right at the beginning? In answer to my noble
friend’s question about recovering some of the costs from the
companies which built the carrier, the noble Earl said that the
Government are involved in negotiations. Will he undertake to
come back to the House and update us on these negotiations, so
that we can see if we can get some of our money back?
The (Con)
I am very happy to commit.
(Lab)
My Lords, to come back on the point of risk, would the Minister
not agree that, if there had been a war, there is no doubt that
the “Queen Elizabeth” would have sailed, thus with corrosion on
her coupling of tensile steel? I have no doubt, with my
professional knowledge of this, that she would have been under
steam for many months without anything going wrong. They are
doing double checks and double checks because they are so nervous
about something happening. I think there is an issue about risk,
and possibly sometimes we do not take risks we should. On this
occasion, I think it was the right decision, because another
carrier was available, but in wartime we would have gone ahead
and the ship would have operated.
The (Con)
My Lords, from what I know about that, I agree entirely with what
the noble and gallant Lord has just said.
(Con)
Would my noble friend the Minister agree with me that,
disappointingly, these aircraft carriers, which are in any event
extremely vulnerable in the theatre of operations, also appear to
be unreliable? Will he confirm to the House that there will have
sailed with the aircraft carrier an added complement to her crew
from the civilian engineers responsible for these problems?
The (Con)
My Lords, my understanding is that that is the case. Clearly,
these matters are looked at seriously throughout these exercises,
and obviously one hopes that the reliability of these extremely
complicated pieces of equipment improves.
