National Shipbuilding Strategy — House of Commons, 2017-09-06
Topic: Defense
Michael Fallon (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Lady—I think that that was a welcome for the strategy, even though she had some detailed questions. Let me try to answer the, I think, seven of them First, Sir John Parker did report at the end of last November and we initially hoped to publish the strategy in early summer. The hon. Lady asked why it had been delayed. I think I recall a general election around that time—she may recall it, too. There was therefore necessarily a delay. We have now introduced the strategy—I wish it had been a few months earlier. Secondly, the hon. Lady asked when we intend to start placing the orders. We will run the competition at pace next year. We hope to place the order by the end of next year and start the building programme in 2019 The hon. Lady asked about contingency. The problem with naval procurement under successive Governments for many years has been cost overruns. The frigates will be procured in a completely different way. We are setting a price per ship and challenging the yards to come up with the right bids to match that price. It is a reasonable price and it is now up to industry to meet it I hope that the eventual winner—or winners—of the tender programme will be encouraged to show us how it proposes to involve its local supply chains, and certainly the British steel content it can provide. Not all specialist steels for shipbuilding are made in this country, but we certainly encourage the use of British steel. We now have the means to do that through the procurement policy, which enables us specifically to consider that factor when weighing up the different tenders The hon. Lady asked about exports. It is a sad fact that we have not exported a new warship from this country under any Government since the 1970s. The new frigate is specifically designed to be exportable—a ship that other navies want to use. We already have an intensive export campaign for the Type 26 frigate. I have been championing its case in Australia, which is about to purchase an anti-submarine frigate, and also in Canada. I assure her that the Type 31e will be designed for export and we will put the full weight of Government behind that campaign The hon. Lady asked what we are doing to secure British defence companies’ continued participation in the European market after Brexit. We will shortly publish how we see the future of foreign policy and of defence and security policy in the new partnership that we want with the European Union. That will include our view of future participation in European defence programmes and funding Finally, the hon. Lady asked about manning in the Royal Navy. It is currently over 97% manned. We are spending a great deal of money on recruitment marketing and improving retention in the Royal Navy. We have spent some £40 million a year on recruitment marketing for the Royal Navy. She will have noticed that unemployment in this country is the lowest for 40 years. The Royal Navy, like many other large organisations, has to compete with other sectors of the economy, but I assure her that we will ensure that it does so. She will recall from the strategic defence review of two years ago that we are increasing the number of personnel in the Royal Navy by 400 sailors to man the additional ships.