The government has faced sharp criticism in the House of Lords after former First Sea Lord, Lord West of Spithead, warned that the Royal Navy’s attack submarine force has reached what he called “the worst state in my 60 years of service.”
The debate, held on 8 December during a session on the Royal Navy Submarine Force, saw peers challenge Ministers over delays, shortages and maintenance failures that have left the fleet struggling to meet operational commitments and to sustain the nuclear deterrent with acceptable resilience.
Lord West delivered a stark assessment. He argued that years of underinvestment in dry docks, spares, engineering capacity and recruitment had created a situation where the UK has often been able to deploy only one attack submarine at a time. “Some of the time, it has not had one at all,” he said. “That is pretty horrifying for a maritime nation of our stature.”
He also raised concerns about the strain on the Continuous At Sea Deterrent. “At the moment, the boats are having to do 200 day patrols, with no fallback should something go wrong. We have maintained it, it is an amazing effort, but, my God, we should not be in that position.”
Responding for the government, Defence Minister Lord Coaker accepted that the challenges were real but insisted they were being tackled under the First Sea Lord’s new 100 day plan to stabilise critical areas of the Navy. He highlighted major investment programmes already underway. “There are now programmes of investment in the infrastructure of both Devonport and Faslane,” he said, pointing to the Dreadnought programme’s £31 billion budget and the £10 billion contingency attached to it.
Coaker also confirmed moves to expand the engineering workforce that sustains the submarine flotilla. “We have started to ensure that we recruit more of those,” he told peers. “Recruitment and retention of submariners have improved as well.”
When challenged by Lord Wallace of Saltaire on the root causes of the maintenance backlog, Coaker acknowledged that infrastructure delays had played a major part. He said the Navy was examining the floating dry dock concept as a faster option while long term investments mature. “It is certainly something that can be made available much more quickly,” he said, while stressing that significant funding was already flowing into the permanent facilities at Devonport and Faslane.
He also argued that the national shortage of specialist technical labour was a core issue, one that successive governments had struggled to resolve. “Getting technicians, engineers and the important skills that we need is a problem that has bedevilled our country for decades,” he said, adding that vocational training needed greater support to secure the workforce required.
Coaker urged peers to recognise the commitment of submariners who have sustained Operation Relentless without interruption for 56 years. But he conceded that more must be done to harden the fleet against rising undersea threats. “The First Sea Lord has announced further measures to protect the undersea environment to counter the new threats we face in that domain.”