Contribution
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) on securing this important debate on the 125th anniversary of the Royal Navy’s submarine service, and for introducing it so ably.
I declare two interests: first, my late father, Stoker First Class Reginald Francois, served in the Royal Navy during the second world war, although he was a minesweeper man, not a submariner; and secondly, I am, by virtue of my father’s service, a long-standing honorary member of the Rayleigh branch of the Royal Naval Association. Members of the Rayleigh RNA were out in force on Remembrance Sunday, led by their chairman Mike Sandbrook, who is a former submariner. I am wearing my RNA tie this evening.
Despite Admiral Wilson’s strictures, which we heard about from the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome), the Royal Navy’s first operational submarine, the Holland 1, entered service in 1901. It was built in Barrow-in Furness, which is where BAE Systems builds our nuclear submarines today. The submarine service began the first world war with some 60 submarines. Those gave good service to the King, as evidenced by the fact that five of the 14 Victoria Crosses awarded to the Royal Navy during the great war went to submariners. The Royal Navy began world war two with a similar number of submarines, although by 1945, that number had more than trebled. RN submarines operated in the Atlantic and Pacific, but perhaps most famously in the Mediterranean—my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway has already mentioned the exploits of HMS Upholder.
During the cold war, the Royal Navy transitioned to primarily nuclear propulsion, and our first nuclear attack submarine, HMS Dreadnought, was commissioned in 1960. RN submarines played an important role in the Falklands war of 1982. That includes the HMS Conqueror famously torpedoing the Argentinian cruiser, the General Belgrano, and returning to port flying a Jolly Roger. Later classes of attack submarine—the Swiftsures and Trafalgars—continued the noble tradition of protecting the seas, as is now performed by the latest Astute class.
In 1968, the Royal Navy assumed the role of providing our nuclear deterrent from the Royal Air Force, and the Resolution class of ballistic missile submarines entered service. From then onwards, at least one Royal Navy nuclear deterrent submarine has always remained at sea, in the ocean depths, providing the ultimate guarantee of our national security. That mission, known as the continuous at-sea deterrent, or Op Relentless, has been successfully performed for more than 57 years. That is an amazing tribute to the professionalism and endurance of Royal Navy submariners.
The Royal Navy also has an extremely proud tradition of utilising its nuclear attack submarines to monitor potential adversaries, particularly the Russian navy as it seeks to operate in the High North and the north Atlantic. Nevertheless, as we have already heard, there are also concerns about the availability of our attack submarine fleet.
It is an oft-forgotten fact that Vladimir Putin’s father was a submariner and Putin has continued to invest heavily in his submarine fleet and increase the monitoring by Russian submarines of undersea cables around the British Isles that are absolutely fundamental to our commercial life.
In the light of that, it is deeply worrying that, for a period of several months earlier this year, not a single one of our attack submarines was at sea, as is well known to the Chinese and the Russians. Perhaps when the Minister responds to this debate, he can explain why that was the case and, even more importantly, what is being done to fix that situation. It is simply unacceptable that the Astutes, which cost £1.5 billion each, are tied up alongside for long periods when the Russians are roving at will in the north Atlantic. The wall of silence about the chronic unavailability of the Astute class cannot go on; I would like the Minister to address that issue when he responds.
In summary, the Royal Navy’s silent service, whose motto is “We Come Unseen”, has an extremely proud tradition of service to this nation. It takes a quite extraordinary individual to be prepared to serve at sea, often for months at a time, especially on deterrent patrols that take them away from friends and family, and without access to so much as a mobile phone. The nation rightly remains proud of those who wear dolphins and will no doubt continue to give valiant and resolute service to the people of these islands, just as successfully as they have done for the past 125 years.