L

Lord West of Spithead (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 30 April 2025

Debate

National Shipbuilding Strategy

Contribution

My Lords, a shipbuilding strategy is meaningless unless there are not just orders for ships, but a drumbeat of orders. I spent 15 years on the Opposition Benches pointing out to the then Government that we needed to get some orders going and get them in quickly, so that there was a programme of build; otherwise the Navy would be decimated—which it has been. There is now a threat to the continuous at-sea deterrence, for the same reason. Will the Minister speak to the right honourable John Healey and the Treasury? We must have a sequence of orders, a drumbeat of orders, or we will not get the shipyards and SMEs to recruit people, invest and get apprenticeships. It will be meaningless unless we manage to do this.

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