Speeches by Martin.

“Okay.”

“What was the problem? Was it just that the hull was riddled and could not be repaired? Do we know the technical reason why it was taken out of service?”

“It is still stuff going from here to here, and you push fire and it goes whoosh. Where is the investment to deliver that? I recognise that they might be uncrewed RFA ships, but where is that in the DIP?”

“One of the advantages of having an uncrewed missile platform at sea is that your magazine depth is much greater because you do not need people, spaces for people, protection and all the rest of it. You can therefore have a much bigger magazine depth. The Type 45s run out of missiles. That means that your maritime logis…”

“Which period do they fall into? Is it after 2030?”

“It would be great if we could plug and play some of that stuff. I will ask a couple of quick-fire ones, if I may. We have just had these two frigates taken out of service. We spent over £100 million on refitting Iron Duke a small number of years ago. In fact, I think the refit took longer than the payback of service. C…”

“I get that.”

“I would like to talk about frigates and destroyers. We are phasing out our Type 23 frigates. It was announced today that two of them have gone out of service. We currently have five frigates. The DIP says that all the Type 23s will be out of service by 2033. They will be replaced primarily by Type 26s, which are the an…”

“What is that? I am not familiar with it.”

“Thank you. On destroyers, we have six Type 45s now. I think most of them are tied up. They are due to go out of service by 2035, according to the DIP. Obviously, destroyers provide air defence, and they are going to be replaced by not one ship—because the Type 83s, which were the like-for-like replacement, have been ca…”

“I agree with you: we need to make the leap into this new world of autonomy, and there is no time like the present. As I think you touched on, the maritime domain is extremely difficult, particularly the north Atlantic and the High North. Everything breaks at sea all the time, and that is why you need people, because th…”

“Are you saying that some of the vessels in this fleet are going to be single-use?”

“It still stands that the maritime domain is extremely difficult to operate in.”

“I have some quickfire questions, but Brigadier, and Mr Keay, do you want to come in on those broad questions I have asked?”

“Okay. As I understand it, this fleet will provide the air defence capabilities that the current destroyer fleet provides, and will also provide some anti-submarine options. There are sensor ships, missile ships, above surface and below surface—an autonomous fleet. There is a reason why we are bringing autonomy to the m…”

“How many frigates will we have in service in 2030?”

“I am curious about this mantra that there have not been any blackouts. Over the past six months, businesses in the St John’s area of Tunbridge Wells have complained of blackouts. I surveyed my constituents who live in the area, and 60% said that they had experienced some blackouts—not long-term ones, but intermittent b…”

“I am sure you are aware that there are rumours online, specifically on Reddit, that when our nuclear bomber boat went out recently, there was not a UK Astute-class submarine available to “delouse” the bomber and get it out to sea without being detected. Is that true?”

“Will you write to the Committee afterwards with a number?”

“Okay. Would you be able to write to the Committee about the precise reason? I assume that it was hull strength because they are all well past their dates. Keeping with the same ship, we were going to fit a towed sonar array to Iron Duke as well. That plan was started and then abandoned. Could you tell the Committee how…”