Over-expensive frigates weaken the Navy
SIR – Lord West is wrong to claim that delays have occurred in ordering the Type 26 Frigate “because the Ministry of Defence has run out of money” (report, June 8). There is plenty of money in the MoD’s budget, which actually increased above what was intended this year, due to the “2 per cent pledge” demanded by Nato.
The problem is how the money is being spent. The frigates that Lord West is so keen on are over-specified in a way that has rendered them unaffordable. The original cost, of £250-350 million each, is now about £900 million. When the cost is allowed to spiral in this way, it is inevitable that the speed and rate at which the MoD can afford to order the ships will suffer.
Another reason for the supposed lack of funds is the rate at which the embryonic Trident replacement programme is diverting money from conventional naval forces, with a further £840 million for Trident’s successor announced earlier this year.
Finally, the cost of fixing the propulsion system problems in the Navy’s previous class of over-specified warships – the Type 45 Destroyers, which entered service between 2009 and 2013 – is using significant funding that would otherwise be available for the Type 26 Frigates. The cost of fixing each Type 45 Destroyer is likely to be in excess of £40 million per hull, over the class of six Type 45 ships.
The 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review recognised the unaffordability of the Type 26 Frigate programme and chose to cut back the order from 13 to eight hulls, in favour of a new class of more affordable Type 31 Light Frigate. However, even this reduced order is excessive. The sole justification for ships as complex and expensive as Type 26 Frigates is their role as high-speed escorts for the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers.
As there will only be two new aircraft carriers, halving the proposed Type 26 Frigate order to four ships would still be ample to fulfil Britain’s needs, so long as the order of Type 31 Light Frigate orders was increased to compensate. Dr Mark Campbell-Roddis Dunblane, Perthshire