First Sea Lord gives evidence to Commons committee about Royal Navy readiness levels

See our analysis of the discussion in the article here:

First Sea Lord answers questions about Royal Navy readiness levels

Time in front of us today I’m going to get straight into the uh issues if I may uh before I hand over to my colleagues and the first thing first I’d like to ask you is how events in the Middle East have impacted your thinking on Readiness

Um I think the first thing I’d say is ready you know how do we think about readiness and I think Readiness for the service at the moment is across two areas uh where it pertains to the Middle East firstly are we do we continue to be

Ready to do deliver all the other tasks that are placed upon us uh we are a globally deployed Navy uh we operate in a number of areas around the world a number of you will have experienced of ATT to opvs you will have seen the number of ships that we’re currently um

Uh have in the North Atlantic both aircraft carriers are deployed and of course we can continue to deliver the independent nuclear deterrent so on a day-to-day basis our Readiness is that 50% of the fleet is either at sea or at very high Readiness to deploy but specifically therefore against that

Baseline what does this mean for the Middle East and the AR architecture that we look at is what are the contingency plans or contingency options we might be asked to undertake uh and how are we posturing accordingly and that sense of Readiness being an everpresent mindset uh doesn’t change what it what

Does is then uh assessing a range of likely tasks and and and setting accordingly and I would observe that the literal Response Group is in the Mediterranean um it has set itself for a range of uh potential activity we have ships allocated to Nato uh H Duncan is

Currently part of the NATO task group and in fact we currently provide the one-star Commander for the NATO task group in the Middle East H and we continue to offer and think through a range of likely scenarios uh or options uh that CDs can then work with ministers to consider

Advice and choices for the prime minister so Readiness is something that we do all the time uh and then you cleave across that not just what we do today but what we might be asked to do tomorrow and that’s how we balance uh the Readiness question that we have it’s

Another event that adds to the already significant burden that there is on the Royal Navy though is it not it is indeed I mean this committee has um wisely observed that we could do with a bigger Navy and and and actually you will always have more tasks for a

Navy uh than there are ships by D of the fact that we’re a maritime Nation I mean you’ll all be aware um uh of our dependency upon the sea the figures are are trotted out very regularly they’ve almost become trite but I think they’re just worth rehearsing the 90% of our trade by

Volume uh Travels by sea but 99% of our data and therefore our financial data travels on seabed cables so we have a dependency upon the sea which is both economic and security that that mandates a Navy that is ready to meet a range of security tasks and the Very fact of the

Uncertain geopolitical context we find ourselves in today uh would point to that range of tasks being very considerable so the emergence of a an issue in the Middle East that you will need to be ready for will naturally in the light of the fact that we need a

Bigger Navy uh have ensured that you have less time available to ensure that you’re ready for for example a challenge for peer adversary it must follow that’s why for us having such a high proportion of the fleet at high Readiness or very high Readiness is so important on a rolling basis read

Maritime Readiness is not something you can suddenly magic up if you’re taking a ship out of refit and Steve perhaps could explain for the committee the sort of process that he thre if you’re bringing a ship out of deep maintenance or refit crewing it and training it and

Bring it to a state of Readiness or bring it out of a maintenance period that is something that requires time and and because of how quickly events can change we therefore need to M we need to ensure that a significant proportion of the fleet is at high Readiness

Throughout so that we can respond in a timely fashion and that’s within our DNA if you’re forward deployed to some part of the world has often been in my career and the list of orders you sail on changes you can’t go running back to UK and go oh we weren’t expecting that we

Better have a rethink you deal with what you’ve got at the time and so a broader sense of prepar parness able to respond is something that is implicit in in Maritime power and what what what I tried to drive the fleet to deliver uh for the Secretary of State thank you

That is great for an opening uh session let’s turn to some of the the real detail and the issues and I’d like to turn to Kevin Jones please thank you chair um with the development of the NATO force model and Regional uh plans what will change in terms of the effects

It will have on uh the Navy’s read because we already allocate a significant amount of uh the operational Fleet to Nato under the current model the shift to the new force model is frankly going to make very little change to the way we think the commitment is already

Significant and the therefore what the new um force model uh the new Regional plans means for me uh and for the way we force generate is it gives us greater Clarity on the range of tasks we might have to fulfill the allies and partners within NATO that we are likely to fulfill them

And therefore we can really focus the sort of thinking both conceptual and training wise to those that we could find ourselves Under Fire with to maximize the operational capability we offer we’ve been doing this for some time members of the committee no doubt have have visited operational sea

Training down of Plymouth where a number of our NATO Partners send their ships to train the NATO Maritime structure for developing War fighting capability is wellb built and that is not being changed it is being sharpened by the change to the NATO force model that’s coming across but we already allocate

More of our Maritime Force almost proportionately than any other nation in NATO and so for us that level of commitment remains a a a truth so it’s not an increase in uh need in terms of the it’s within the envelope you’ve already got dedicated towards NATO is

That what you start telling us yes yeah yes now NATO would like to draw down on it more regularly because of course this apart from those forces that are going to be deployed under NATO command and control and and I would observe at the moment you know that we’ve for the uh in

The last year we’ve had forces under NATO command and control opcon is the technical term allocated for the best part of a year now including unusually at at times and SSN and and and an aircraft carrier you know these are significant commitments for us where we’re allowing NATO to determine how

These units are deployed but the Readiness factor that we apply which is what a lot of the NATO force model is about is something that we we’ve grown up with and if they wish to draw them down then we merely take those units from what they’re doing at

The time and bring them under the NATO umbrella these are choices that can be exercised by the Secretary of the State at the day but we just need to make sure that we can continue to fulfill the requirements placed upon us the new force model is going to make I think

Some quite demanding statements around the capabilities that that we put uh and that might be something that we could cover in the Clos session in due course as to what that will will feel like but the concept in itself and that scale of contribution uh feels entirely

Comfortable to me can I just ask ask in terms of the uh commitment because clearly you just said that you can’t just you can’t just turn this on like a tap when you need to ship and turn it off again when you you don’t want there’s obviously that training cycle

And things through so in terms of our commitment to Nato how long does that last and is it continuous in terms of are you regenerating something else then to replace it can you just talk us through exactly how it operates in practice some of some of the tasking is specific so

There’ll be a specific capability so recently as an example it was the command platform HMS Prince of Wales was generated specifically for that task H Miss Duncan has this this calendar year has been the the flagship in the Mediterranean and then others are much more Dynamic so the conversation with my

NATO colleagues is is an almost daily one looking at that envelope uh and some of it is pre-planned can I have a specific capability others is in a response to contingency um and so it a trade space with other nations as to who can do what at a particular time but by

Our training protocols and all that we do is within a NATO construct as a as a Navy we’re very very able to dynamically integrate within a NATO construct our training of the south coast and the North Coast of Scotland is all around a NATO framework so our our units are

Absolutely you know can operate handing glove at the drop of a hat ad can you just took us through for example let’s take HMS Duncan what’s the it’s obvious committed to Nato tasking what’s the time it spends there one what’s the uh recovery time in terms of just get an

Understanding of how it actually works in practice so a platform will will be generated for that specific task uh a deployment and then when they come home the platform fundamentally um requires a period of Maintenance but throughout that operating cycle we we operate a trickle drafting so that people will

Just come and go routinely it’s not a huge significant reset as you might see with other uh uh armed services so so the the ship in itself can probably go away again ideally would five six weeks of Maintenance but then you can go away

Again uh so as we saw on the back of the carrier deployment in 2021 those units that went deployed at the end of January having been back alongside for six weeks in response to Ukraine some of the people have changed we’ve continued training but the platform can go again

So you can maintain that Readiness cycle uh in a pretty agile manner and as our assets come out of NATO tasking other nations fill in absolutely so Duncan will hand over potentially to a French unit or a Dutch unit or whoever it be and that’s part of that pre-planned uh

Methodology that sits alongside the overall Readiness scale you’ll be aware that you know NATO demands some things to be available in days few to move other things can be at 30 days to move providing we are man delivering the number of frigs or destroyers that are at 30 days to move

NATO doesn’t NATO wants to know the names of them but it doesn’t specify the names of them so we’re able to cycle ships through but what we are able to do is to maintain once you’ve generated something out of deep refit gone through all the stages of training you can then

Sustain High Readiness for quite a period of time before you then need to roll it out to be replaced by something else when you talk about high redit what what’s that what’s that actually mean in practice High Readiness is is a way of describing a a level of training um a level of

Sustainment a a a maintenance and uh equipment availability standard all of which has been brought together so that you can sit there and know with confidence that the ship or the Commando unit is capable of fulfilling a range of tasks responding at very short notice and they have the wherewith all to meet

It you don’t need to suddenly take them away and put them through another training bit because you hadn’t foreseen that that was it those tasks are clearly you know what they are in advance from NATO that you’ve got abnc tasks that you need to train for so that

You actually know you can do we do indeed um and we have a you know well established sort of methodology of uh thinking through what those tasks might mean uh any particular direction the chief of Defense staff will be put into his directive to us uh we then generate

Against that standard which NATO has full transparency of um in in order to say this unit is available to you over a sustained period of time and Agility is is an essential part of that because as I said earlier if you’re deployed and the task changes

Um you can’t come rushing back home to UK to reset you have to deal with it at the time thank you thank you can I talk about some of those issues in a bit more detail a bit more conceptually you’ve spoken about readiness in the context of

NATO uh redness and essentially you are saying there’s a range of tasks for which you have to be fully trained and you’re able to deploy them at a certain Readiness window which means time essentially uh and the same you you were I think it answer to Mr Jones you were

Talking about that in the context of uh NATO assigned units presumably the same would apply for non-n assigned units for anything that we need to do outside of NATO absolutely so um I think the story of um HS dness would be a good one Steve

So H tless generated out of um a long Main period where her propulsion program was updated um thank you very much uh for that and uh Direction came that we wanted to have a presence in the Caribbean during the core hurricane season so with weeks notice we designed

A bespoke training package so the that platform was crewed and equipped and trained accordingly and dispatched and and you know he only just finishing up now and we’ll return home but that was done in a really agile manner in I say in the space of weeks in order to get ah

Into that theater at the right time and subsequently had huge success not only there for Hurricane but wider work uh with security agencies out there in counternarcotics operations presumably those four or five tasks that you are ready for at a certain Readiness window be that 48 Hours the week or whatever it

May be isn’t holy it’ll be exclusive it won’t Encompass every possibility uh and what is the position if a task arrives that is outside if we wanted to redeploy dauntless to go into something higher end then we would offer a bespoke training package and we could do that on

The passage back across the Atlantic some of this we can do synthetically while she’s on Transit we could fly people out there there’s a whole host of ways of doing it but we’d be talking days not weeks before that could roll had we had more time in the first place

We could have trained her up for all of that before she went to the Caribbean time wasn’t on our side and that’s the essence of the matter isn’t it because if we’re talking about readiness the question back would be Readiness for what yes uh because there is everything

That you might be asked to do from peer adversary down to supplying aid for a disaster Zone as you you’ve rightly said so the Readiness for what then depends presumably upon the reporting system that there is with M how how agile is that in terms of preparing for different

Eventualities to shape the advice that you give to ministers yes so the the M’s uh capability assessment uh process Readiness process specifies a number of uh potential scenarios um and I’m sure you know they again will be explored in the in the closed session and and each

Of those scenarios will then you know mandate certain capabilities within certain platforms um a and we will we will train to those and Equip to those and and store to those now in in some areas in in truth we we have to take some risk because if you spend you could spend

Your whole time just training and not actually doing so in some areas we’ll make a risk judgment that says the likelihood of that is relatively low because the demanding nature of training to that level whilst dealing with everything else is is a compromise but we are aware of it and the point that

You can then put into the reporting system is if there was a redeployment required and and I think dauntless would be a good example um if there is a redeployment required then there will be some form of top up necess necessary but we will M minimize that topup you know

If you were to take dauntless when she gets back having been deployed for six months you’ll probably need a bit of engineering work how do we minimize that um uh with some risk judgments what training can we do alongside that using the simulators ass sure how can you very

Quickly then recover the specifics that will allow a ship to deploy into a different set of specified tasks but our Baseline is is designed that those topups are clearly understood and so if something has been prepared to be at high Readiness or very high Readiness then we’ve we’ve got a pretty clear

Understanding of the Gap analysis that that is necessary there partly because we need to know that we can close that Gap and and that is an essential part of the the thought process behind the reporting tool part of my formal Handover of a platform is exactly that articulating that Delta so the

Operational Commander knows what that platform is and isn’t of and how long it may take to to fill it the operational Commander will understand how much risk he or she is carrying set against an a number of possible scenarios absolutely and therefore ministers understand what risk they are carrying against whatever

They may wish to be doing so and I’m glad first you’ve mentioned this at this point about risk because presumably this is at the heart of this matter it’s what your attitude to risk is you can have everybody High reedness the entire time but then you need a much bigger Navy and

Much more resources or you’ll burn everybody out has the advice you’re giving to ministers changed as a result of recent events I think what’s changed in the uh conversations that uh I have with ministers and and with CDs because I have to recognize that actually the

Advice is CDs is to give I advise here so um uh the the the conversations we are having absolutely have to reflect the immediacy of the threat that we as we understand it and the range of tasks that we have it would be it would be um somewhat surprising if we weren’t

Considering those in a very Dynamic sense so when you look at for instance the ships that the have been announced has deployed the literal Response Group um we will have had a a a very real conversation about what are the capabilities they offer H and what are

The means in which you could best employ those and where might you be taking a risk envelope slightly higher now I know from my own experience as chief of joint operations previously that risk in an operational context is also a very Dynamic thing because you’re looking at

The benefit you want to acove from the risk you’re willing to expose that platform too and that actually is the heart of the conversation between the operational Commander the chief of Defense staff and ministers now given that as you rightly say the committee is of the view that we need need a bigger

Navy given the amount of tasks that you’re faced to do anyway given the increase in uh strategic challenges we know what those are we don’t need to rehearse them it would be fair to say would it not that we are carrying much more risk now than we were a couple of years

Ago I think I think I couldn’t possibly disagree with that because of the level of uncertainty we if we if we could specify exactly what was going to happen and when then we could we could manage against that well it’s not just uncertainty though first is it because

That’s life we always are in position we don’t know what’s coming next but we know that there are strategic challenges that we have and the Middle East has presented us with absolutely are yes I agree mark frell thank you chairman we’ll come on to this

In more detail later on first se but but if the job of the Navy is to contribute to deterrence and try to prevent War but should deterrence fail to fight and to win we have 17 frigs and destroyers on paper how many of those could fight tonight how many are operationally available today

Day so I am not mandated to have all of those 17 available to fight we understand that of course some have to be in refit some have to be in main we we do understand to be fair we wrote a report on it yes but how many could fight tonight

So we maintain a Readiness profile of which some can respond at very short notice uh and some might require you know if something is at 30 days notice which is the perfectly respectable piece have come back from a long deployment M they’re not required for immediate tasking we can allow some more intrusive

Maintenance to take place that by the definition fight tonight they would fall short but could they be quickly brought up to some form of Readiness and deployed absolutely the fleet in 1982 that Henry leech deployed wouldn’t have answered the question you’ve asked the number deployed in a 72-hour period was Far

Higher uh than anything that that Readiness profile would have been but it became a moment of national Endeavor and some sophisticated risk judgments as to what you could get away so I am currently able to meet all of the tasks required of Me by the defense plan from

Uh the frig and Destroyer force that is in the operational Fleet that’s really helpful but you never gave us a number no so let’s ask you again how many because the uh in double figures or single figures a very high Readiness is single figures but that’s because we maintain

About 50% of the fleet at high redance and above and uh 17 divided by two is n 8 and a half eight and a half thank you so first the point here is you say you are you have a Readiness profile that you measure against you’re able to

Fulfill the ask that is made of you um by CDs and by ministers shouldn’t we be democratically scrutinizing whether or not the task you are asked to fulfill is adequate now I believe uh sorry if your question is should you be democratically scrutinizing whether or not the task are

Adequate then I I can’t respond that’s not mine that’s not mine to respond to because I don’t own the task allocation I merely Force generate forces against that so the range of tasks uh would be would would be one for ministers whether or not I’ve got sufficient to meet the

Full range of tasks all the time in the way they would wish well as I said at the beginning there’s always a desire to do more than the fleet is actually capable of doing doing and what we pride ourselves on is the degree of agility that will allow us to rebalance against

What ministerial priorities are at the time and and dauntless again we could over we could over squeeze this particular example but that was a a piece of Direction by the minister of the Armed Forces in response to you know foreign office and government policy that to to put a meaningful uh

Capability into the Caribbean during the core Hurrican season a number of ships were available that could have been retasked to do that Each of which came with a penalty and the minister of the Armed Forces determined upon hm daers given that our task is to scrutinize what the mod is doing and

Whether it is providing sufficient for the task you’re able to do uh we should be looking at should we not the defense planning assumptions and whether the force that you’re able to generate against the assumptions is up to scratch that would assist the Navy in ensuring

It’s ready wouldn’t it and I’m sure this is something that we could because our defense plan planning assumptions are kept as a classified document this would be something we we we we could cover in more detail in a closed session thank you first director just just just

Quickly just to to follow on from the chair’s ear earlier question I mean obviously you’ve already said you’re very stretched and uh but you can’t predict everything but of course we could see something happen in the Southeast Pacific in the South China scene then going to be really really

Stretched then um so as as we all seem to agree there should be a larger Navy I just want I’m not going to pressure say how many more ships or how many more assets or whatever but what but but in terms of larg edit what would you really

Like uh additionally to what you’ve got now so what I’d really like if I if I if I could would be to accelerate the pace of transformation from the ships that we’ve got on build and the submarines we’ve got on build at the moment uh to the new Navy because it’s a tremendously

Exciting transformation that we’re going through at the moment the type 26 World leading ASW frig the type 31s I think are really Innovative way of thinking differently about you a general purpose frig the new submarines we’ve got on order and all of these are just just just about to arrive uh in strategic

Terms and and what that represents for us is I think one of the single biggest transformations in the history of the Navy when we genuinely move from a kind of uh analog Navy into a digital Navy something as powerful almost as when Jackie fiser my predecessor many back

Took the Navy from sail and coal into oil because it conceptually drove a different way of thinking a different way of operating so for me I understand that so so for me uh Mr twig the first thing I would I would really look forward to is that the acceleration to

These new platforms which will be more available than the old ones they replace more capable than the old ones they replace not bigger Navy and more deplorable than the old ones they replace is a really important first stage and growing the Navy but we have to get through this transformation

From the old to the new first before you then step forward into all it’s perfectly reasonable what you just said but but again I’ll put the question back to you uh if if you had a choice what additional asset or what what would you like additionally to what you got now

That fist into the fact like a bigger Navy so I would look at the most successful uh most productive parts of the Navy at the moment and and point to broader you you know to to double to double up on those you know there is fantastic utility coming out of the

Offshore Patrol vessels in terms of delivering United Kingdom presence around the world in a very uh coste effective manner uh and you know High Commissioners ambassadors from the world regularly report diplomatic telegrams as to the impact those ships are having I I look at the uh Journey that our

Amphibious Fleet is is going to undertake over the next few years and recognize the importance of the Commando forces I think these are really key elements of of the future design and so making sure that we’re maximizing our cap capacity and capability there but the previous Secretary of State has sort

Of pointed to that program uh when he announced the mrss uh decision which will go jointly with the Dutch I think these are the things that really give us a chance to do some of the stuff that the Royal Navy is is fantastic at which is thought leadership amongst other

Navies we’ll never be the biggest uh that’s that’s not a gift that’s going to with us I don’t think that matters but what we do want to do is to make a really effective and influential contribution around the world and those are the sort of platforms beyond the

Current plans that are currently in place that I think would make a huge difference your priority okay mark thank you um first we appreciate all that but some of the challenges for which you as the Royal Navy are not responsible for is that these new ships which you make a

Great deal of are not always on time so Babcock build the type 31 the venturer class they the first of those comes into service in 2027 so that’s four years from now they’re in a financial dispute about the cost of those ships with the department but they’re apparently keeping to

Time the type 26 frigate first of class Haus Glasgow the ioc keeps slipping it’s now late 2028 so it will have taken 11 years to lay the killed the K build the ship and bring her into service the Japanese build the equivalent ship in between three and four years again it’s

Not the Navy’s fault but how are you going to maintain the operational Readiness that you need when these critical ships highly capable though they are are years late certainly in the type 26 case so we have to be uh ruthlessly focused on where we apply resource effectively and what are the what are

The key tasks and the key capabilities that the fleet don’t need uh in order to maintain that and the absolute priority for me is to ensure that we’re providing support to the um to our delivery of the deterrent in the North Atlantic and so making sure that we’re maintaining a a

Sufficiently robust and resilient ASW capability through means that I do need to take at times what look like on the surface some very difficult prioritization decisions against the the money that is accorded to me um to do so right because we’ve been left and we’ve had this discussion before but I’m very happy

We’ve been left because of the not just not just the challenges of bringing these ships in and these are complicated complicated first prototypes that are being built here it’s you know I think we sometimes we sometimes forget that you wouldn’t you wouldn’t take the first car off a production line and sell that

To the public public but we’re trying to take the first ship off the production line bring it into Services as quickly as we can working with our industrial Partners yes but with respect it’s equally complicated it’s a challenge for the Japanese and they suffered from coid

Too yet they managed to do it in a third of the time I’m I’m very happy to explore this probably out of committee but I’m I’m not sure the light for light comparison stands up to being quite a third of the time um I’ve certainly had conversations with my Japanese opposite

Number about this well it’s a lot quicker but but if your if your fundamental point is is it going to be a challenge for us to keep some very old ships going all the way through into the early 2030s as part of this transition yes it is fine so let’s just quickly

Then move on to the type so you’ve got to run the type 23s on until these new ships arrive some of them will have to serve for 35 years in order to make everything fit and that’s way beyond their service life you refitted iron Juke well you

Didn’t Babcock did it took four years it cost over1 million for one ship and she’s finally rejoining the fleet there are strong rumors that hmus Westminster will not be refitted because she’s in such a poor condition because she’s so old poor thing after many years law service to the ground that you’ve

Written her off because it’s not economic to repair her so then we’re down to 16 for the next few years what is the status of Westminster and have you written her off work continues today with Westminster in preparation for her up no decisions have been made and and

Continually with those FRS I absolutely recognize the age of them some of them have already served 30 years or so um and we we have to manage it it goes back to the conversation about risk and how much you how much you use today and our advice into ministers and through CDs

Exactly that we’ve learned a lot through recent Ships coming through upkeep about how and this this is part of the transition that we’re desperate to make into type 26 in how we can maintain our ships differently and we spoke about this previously when we when we met in

The ministry of Defense if we can Embrace a more commercial and agile model rather than what you would recognize as uh a sort of boom and bust where long refits as you’ve just described of trying to get to it much more now we’re seeing that the fruits of

That in some of the 23s already and that’s what we’re going to have to embrace over the next sorry there’s never the problem with there’s never enough time in these hearings so I do apologize for cutting across you but but we need to try and get to the nub of

It four years to refit a refit a frigate even by British standards you could build one from scratch in as much time certainly Babcock seemed to be on target to do that for the so we spend four years refitting A Very Old Ship we could build a new one just as fast why

Don’t we do more why don’t we build more of the new ones and stop refitting so many of the old ones but this is this this Mr pron is one of the one of the the choices that when we count up the fleet what we’ve got to focus on is have

I got enough operational Fleet to deliver what I need to do and are we setting for the transition for the new so that we can as seamlessly as possible bring in the new to replace the old so if if you sit there and count this is

The number of ships we’ve got it’s going to be four years to refit um Westminster as a minimum uh we think but that work is going on at the moment that takes us to 20 27 we’ll be on the verge of a new one but we’re not counting hmss Glasgow

In that emerging Fleet you can’t she doesn’t come until 28 but the point is we should in next year I’m going to counter on that four years because that looks like the overall Fleet numbers we’ve got we’ve got a tremendous Fleet that’s coming in build the question is have I got enough

To deliver against the range of tasks in the operational Fleet have I got enough again for the record this is mainly industry that has done this to you not the Royal Navy I think it’s important to emphasize that but you haven’t said that you’re not going to refit Westminster

But you haven’t said that you are so I think we’re long enough in this game to know what that means so we’re down to 16 and just we when we did an inquiry into procurement as a committee as a subcommittee we gave three examples one from each service of where it had gone

Horribly wrong Ajax for the Army wedg tail for the Air Force and type 26 for the wrong can you please assure us that you’re doing everything you can in private to keep industry up to the mark because so far they are letting you down so we are working extremely closely

With with industry they fully understand the concerns we have regular conversations not just about the fact that this is a ship building program but actually this is about uh delivering greater Maritime capability to Del to to to cope with a range of increas ining challenges in the North Atlantic and

Globally deployed so there is an end point to this which is beyond just the delivery Voyage of HMS Glasgow or any of her sisterships into this is so that we have World leading capability to deal with those who may wish us harm and getting that sense of purpose into ba

Systems and to their credit if you’re up at govern now it feels very different in terms of that overall commitment and the workforce engagement into this as it does at uh uh at rosai for the type 31s just as I’m sure it will do um in harand

The record so we went to govern to see for ourselves and they only admitted to us that the ioc on Glasgow we spent a whole day there the ioc for Glasgow was slipping as we were going out of the door to race for the airport to get our

Flight so I don’t think Bae were as transparent and open about the problems as they might have been I mean we were l literally about to load the bags on the minib bus when they coughed it up and and one of the other things that I really hold BAE Systems to account and

We do is is whatever is happening to Glasgow the rest of the class must not be affected in the same way so there is and I’m not here to defend a ship building industry but they also are fundamental to to the Royal Navy being able to do so they are Partners in this

Endeavor what is really important is that we don’t see a KnockOn effect and that the learning that they take from the the the the Journey of HMS Glasgow translates into HMS Cardiff translates into HS Belfast and into the batch to which is now on order as well so that

The drum beat picks up and providing we see that then from my point of view not withstanding some of the frustrations that you point to at the moment I think we will see ourselves set on a stable path quite soon last your predecessor in that job described managing to juggle

All of this and keep it keep the schedules going and a number of ships available as Alchemy I think to some of us on this committee it’s starting to look like Fool’s Gold anyway back to you chair thank you Mar very true can we just move away just from

Operational Readiness to war fighting Readiness and could you tell us what you’ve done in the last two years to to make basically a nabe better for that and maybe you just want to comment as well on munition stock piles when you had in CGS last week that something that

Keeps him away most at night so I think uh you’re referring to the transition from being porcupines into something that is uh of increased lethality and uh greater uh combat availability and we are definitely on a significant Journey uh we really welcome the investment that has been made with

The NATO strike missile uh and the contributions that the Norwegians are are giving to allow us to increase increase our strike capability uh across the the frig Fleet I think that’s a tremendous step forward uh we uh continue to look at uh what the future

Weapon mix will need to be uh and when you look at some of the opportunities that are going to emerge either through orcus pillar 2 or other um or other Tech Innovation plat uh programs that are going on at the moment so that we can understand uh hypersonics better

Directed energy weapons better and the like it’s all part of the mindset that we need to make as this sort of permanent transition that’s going on right at this moment in time though very much as my my fellow Chiefs uh we’re also looking very carefully at the

Lessons that we can draw from what’s going on in the Black Sea uh our Ukrainian partners are are are fighting and learning with Incredible courage and tenacity uh in that environment um H and have been very generous uh with the observations and lessons that they are

Sharing with us as to what that means for stockpile management would be would be a good example uh in that and we are we are just making sure that we are not kidding ourselves that some of the assumptions that we’ve got in the system are are unduly safe uh that in that that

Requires us to work very closely with our supply chain our industrial Partners to make sure they understand the imperatives of what’s going on and in many areas they’ve responded really uh strongly to the challenges we’ve placed upon them um so I’m I’m confident that we’re on a journey of improvement would

I would I I wish to be War fighting would I wish to be yes would I wish to be further down that Journey than where we are at the moment when we see what’s going on currently yes of course I would um but I’ve been very grateful for the

Accelerance that we’re now enjoying the benefit of yeah and so so is the basically the stock Power stock power worry for yet sorry is is mition stop piles I’ll worry for you um it’s I think it’s a it’s a concern for all of us because one of the things that

Um we we have to be you know ruthlessly honest about is that what we’ve seen taking place in Ukraine and off the coast of Ukraine in the Black Sea and all the rest of it has challenged a lot of us in the in the way that we thought

About future conflict in the European theater and for a number of reasons over a number of years driven by uh you know National Financial envelopes or whatever a number of risk positions were taken in in operational capability there were clearly ones that my predecessors were

Content to take at the time but you have to adapt when circumstance change and and what we’ve learned is that we no one was predicting war in southeast Europe to be as as we find ourselves today so we have to observe and learn from that

And then adapt as quickly as we can to ensure that we are not found short should and we could have a separate debate another time about the likelihood it you know but but but should uh the conflict there broaden out across wider Europe and of course I’d also observe

That if we do find ourselves in a NATO setting then we’re not doing this alone you know allies and partners would be with us and so we mustn’t we mustn’t allow ourselves to get sucked into a a kind of conflict that says the Russian Navy’s got all of this and we’ve got all

Of that that that’s a completely false comparator it becomes part of an alliance effort should we find ourselves in that sort of a conflict the other part your training me was the training yes so our training has over the last two years has changed significantly in

In our understanding of the threat so a lot more the training is is is very much down 21st century and it probably was lagging in some be better War Fighters better War Fighters so synthetics and virtual where you are training our Junior operators against threats that are realistic hypersonics these are not

Aircraft flying at 200 knots these are now targets flying at a th000 knots so the training is much much more realistic and demanding on our people so I can again look at the operational commander in the eye with far more Assurance of the capability that they are getting

This takes me to the point about the amount of tasks that are available uh that you can do uh given that the more you’re asked to do the less time there is and space in the program there is for you to do that training um yes but I think the way that

Also are doing our training now uh in synthetics it’s it’s a much easier way of doing the training before it was quite procedural ship would have to go to Sea it would spend period at se doing and it was very much a sequential activity now it with virtual training um

An operations Department in a in a warship can be training for war fighting alongside whilst the engineers on that platform are doing routine maintenance so it’s now concurrent activity so I’m not saying you say half time but it’s a much more efficient way of generating a platform so previously when a when a

Hull would come out of refit it would be periods of months close to a year to Genera operations you know we’ve cut that right down now and the quality is far better S Aon thanks chair can I talk about the submarine service so some of your boat boats are tired reported fires

On board overstretch with the maintenance schedules versus your commitment one of the bombers has just returned from a deployment of 196 days I’m told the longest is 207 days underwater so my question is what risk assessments are you making about the morale and the operational effectiveness and the behavior of your

Submariners when deployments are getting longer and longer so if you were to ask me what keeps me awake at night it’s the well-being of the people that we ask to go to see on our behalf and their families because we ask a huge demand of them of which the submarines service are

Go through significant periods of s real social isolation from the people they love and therefore always at the Forefront of my mind is whether or not we are supporting them and their families as best we possibly can to ensure that the pressures that are inevitably felt with

By them are mitigated or or eased or supported as best we can I don’t think any of us um uh at the moment feel particularly comfortable with some of the really challenging um length of Submarine maintenance periods that are necessary and what that plays out you know it you

Know it’s it’s a great joy that HMS Vanguard is currently um going through all the you know successfully through the sea trials through her long period of Maintenance but it’s no secret that that period of Maintenance was many years longer than it should have been and that

Has had a concurrent knock on into other parts of the submarine service and so there is a huge amount of work going on between us the sub submarine delivery agency and our industrial Partners to work out how we can be more uh more targeted more effective and frankly more

Productive over um the necessary maintenance that we have to put in to submarines that are old and these very complicated complex bits of Kit have a very demanding safety case associated with them and meeting the requirements of that safety case is to my mind absolutely critical uh as well as the

Operational capability we want within them and so we have to find ways of being as effective as possible so that the burden that is felt by the sailors and their families is minimized have we got that right yet no we have not have we got more to do are there more ideas

In the mix absolutely I’ve got a tiger team reporting to me tomorrow who have been told uh to think as freely and without any constraint as possible and they were sort of supported to break off some of the shackles of having been in the service a long time themselves so

That how could they really uh think the unthinkable because we may find it’s not Unthinkable it’s just difficult and it’s not the sort of thing we would wish to do I haven’t had that brief yet so I’m not in a position to speculate on what

Their ideas are but I have been I have been told uh that some of it is extremely imaginative but some of it is going to be completely different Paradigm to the way we’ve thought and if that’s where we need to go then I’m absolutely determined to go there and I

Know that I have full ministerial support in that endeavor can you just explain out of Interest really what effect does sea growth and algae have on protective tiles so it’s well publicized Vanguard came back white and green what what impact did that have on stealth and operational effectiveness so we uh

Clearly keep under close uh analysis uh the signatures of submarines and we survey them on a regular basis and the uh things that we will learn from the recent very long patrols being undertaken by a number of submarines uh is is something that um will no doubt be

Reported to me in due course but forgive me if I don’t sit in public forum and say whether or not I think the mitigation of that that’s for the closed session I think I’ve said it up it’s all right thank you on FR respecting that let’s talk about ssns

Attack submarines and leave the deterrent for another time it the the Navy has always prided itself on the fact that those who volunteer for the saine service those who wear dolphins are volunteers We Now read that you run out of volunteers and you were having to get

People to serve in the submarine service who didn’t initially volunteer to do it is that true at the moment everybody who comes to serve in the Royal Navy is a volunteer yes not all of them will necessarily get their first choice of fighting arm when they come in through the front door that

Is but that that’s not new news that has been the case for some time when I was a junior officer going through a very early offs the watch course on my course of I think there were eight of us three of us were liable for submarine service

And there were only two volunteers one of us was told that they were going into into the submarine service he went on to serve many years very happily but it was not his first choice he wanted to go into the fleet aom all right thank you for clarifying that that’s a very clear

Answer for SE Lord on the attack boats it’s widely publicized it was all over the Internet it was in Navy Lookout that a couple of months ago we didn’t have a single one at Sea I think for the first time in living memory that is operational failure isn’t

It if there was no need for those boats to be at se then that’s not operational failure I’m the boats on that particular day we were meeting the Readiness profile that was required and you can be alongside and at very short notice to sail uh and if that’s the right place to

Put a boat at the time then that’s entirely sensible and the photograph you’re referring to if it had been taken two days lateer it would no doubt have painted a different picture we’ve got to be very careful that we don’t confuse being at Sea with Readiness because otherwise what you get

And this is one of the reasons why the letter to the um uh to uh the shadow lead for defense John Healey um talks about a different way of measuring productivity of the fleet it was because days at Sea is quite a uh is quite a simplistic measurement because what it

Then doesn’t demonstrate is that a ship a ship alongside HMS spay in Tonga providing disaster relief after they’ gone uh suffered a typhoon scores are zero what it means is that um a type 45 HMS Diamond the long side in gotland iseland supporting the Prime Minister as he hosts his Swedish opposite number

Scores a zero with respect for we’re not talking about Patrol vessels I’m not even talking about high-end type 45 destroyers we’re talking about attack submarines which cost a billion and a half pounds each ago now two astute class still to come very long delays in the program and now you can’t monitor

Russian submarines which you often tell us are very active we believe you you can’t monitor to Russian submarines in the North Atlantic if you’re tied up alongside but equally if there are no Russian submarines in the North Atlantic why would we need to deploy one of our own submarines because then we’re

Burning up core time we’re burning up sailor time we’re we’re using time that could be used more efficiently and effectively elsewhere and then we deploy those submarines when we need to which is built into an intelligence picture which we share with our allies and partners under a very sophisticated

Operation which has been running for some time and again the details I’d be very happy to explore with the committee in closed session come on sir not having one ssnc is an embarrassment come on no I I I refute that there was no need for all any of

Those submarines to be at Sea that day now would I like the fleet to be more broadly deployed all of the time and doing active things because submariners want to be busy and active they do but we have to manage it against a likely range of tasks so that we’re deploying

Our small number of ssns as effectively and as efficiently as possible let’s ask you the same question we asked about surface vessels your answer was eight and a half we have six ssns five as stutes one very tired Trafalga class we’ve got two as stutes yet to come how many of those boats

Could put to Sea tonight well I can put I can put to see the number I’m expected to put to see and if we took some risk judgments around the maintenance profile of those that are at lower Readiness uh then in in some order and I’m not an expert on

These things and I’m sure we could put more to see because their crews are available this is a this is a profile I’m I’m not expected I don’t think you’re expecting me to to be able to say I could put all of those submarines to

See today no but I want to know I can meet the numbers that I’m I can meet the numbers that I’m required to put to see we’re not expect you to say you could put all of them to see we we know better than that but we’d like to know that you

Could put half of them to see could you put three to see I can put to see well I can put three I can put three to see I’m I’m actually sure half the fleet so you could do that yes whether I need to do it or not it’s a different

Matter all right because of the compromises that we would you know you know I go back to some of the judgments that Henry leech had to make in 1982 in order to achieve the task group these are sensitive matters so I think I think we’ll leave it there thank you thank you

Mark thank you first we’ve got a number of other topics to cover and very little time to do it and G robberts thank you chair um Admiral good afternoon nice to see you again um just this is the the sort of the table that you’re referring

To in the letter to John Hy um just from my perspective it is Thoroughly useless that is not to dismiss the point that you wish to make which is to distinguish C days to days of Readiness that that’s a fair point to make but the aggregate data which doesn’t give you any sense

When it gets down to individual ships or effective Readiness or into some of the detail Mr fance was asking is not there in that form and if you’re able to explore that in private session with us a little more wholesomely that would be good but the most disappointing trend is

That in each and every area there’s a marked decrease over the last 10 years of Readiness U and the second point I wish to make is I think it is it is a trism that you shared uh that we yes are in NATO and we have allies to rely upon and

Therefore we don’t need to be in a position where we are singularly deploying all of the time or present ourselves in that way but when the United Kingdom as a significant contributor to the NATO is relying more and more heavily on that rationale there is a

Problem and it is an increasing part of M Mod’s lexicon an increasing part of the services position that you can’t be expected to and nor should you be in a position to deliver all tasks required we’re relying on that more so and more so and that concerns me so I I just

Share that um in what you have answered in terms of Readiness we’ve talked about operational Readiness we’ve talked about war fighting capacity you have mentioned and general shnick Carter when he was here talked about the need to consider sustainment so could you outline for us just initially what you consider sustainment to

Mean um sustainment is is is an ability to remain to remain deployed uh and and effective and that that brings to it uh a r a range of factors what are the what are the onboard Holdings you’ve got what are the Holdings that you’ve got availabity available to you within the

Locality the the task group or whatever what does your supply chain look like in order to uh ensure that you can remain deployed and and readily capable and and ultimately as we’re discovering with those that we have for deployed for very long periods of time are you also able

To undertake maintenance in various parts of the world which without coming back to the United Kingdom and that combination then gives you a sustain a basis upon which you uh can deliver um uh War fighting capability from the range of platforms you’ve got what is your assessment of Royal ley’s current

Sustainment well with the with the with the new ships uh the type 45 is coming through pip and all the rest of it we’re actually moving into an increasingly good position because we’ve got uh we’ve got young younger ships they’re they’re well supported the supply chains are

Maturing when you look at the batch two opvs for deployed around the world very high levels of availability and actually as we’re seeing with with the ships uh spay and Tamar we’re also able to do capability upgrades to them now uh uh in the deployed setting which is not

Something we’ve necessarily done in the past but we have to be honest that the sustainment of older ships is is an increasing challenge these these are very demanding that the old 23s are very demanding ships to maintain and their supply chains are under huge amount of

Pressure and that all of that focuses on the engineers that are on board and uh their professional skill and resilience in order to keep these ships available and and I absolutely applaud all Naval Engineers I’m the very proud grandson of a naval engineer I know there’s a son of

A naval engineer in the audience these are phenomenal men and women who who who in some sometimes you know tremendously uncomfortable uh circumstances do a great job of Main maintaining sustained capability for us but we shouldn’t take our eye off that for some of them it’s a very tough

Ask Steve anything you want to add sustaining a type 23 forward for a number of years mcm’s in the Gulf now for over 10 years our batch two Patrol vessels as well now into that into their third year and we are one of very very few nations in the world that could

Deploy a carrier task group to the other side of the world in the middle of coid with very very little Nation host nation support anywhere and sustain that for seven months so so your point on NATO I would slightly challenging that a number of NATO nations want to be with us

Because we can do it and they can’t and they therefore see us as the convening power to come with us on those on those deployments thank you sir Admiral you mentioned uh Maritime Engineers particular pinch point at the moment they are yeah is it down to over tasking

Of Naval assets is it down to insufficient numbers is it down to lack of recruitment what do you put it don’t to uh I think it’s down to the fact that the nation is short of Engineers and we uh we invest skills and capabilities into people that make them very

Attractive in the broader Marketplace and we know therefore that if we don’t and we’ve leared this lesson over many years if we do not properly enable them to be Engineers by providing them with the right tools and the right spares and the right sport at the right

Time then that can be a very frustrating experience for them when you then add on to that the demands of operational um operational programs uh which can lead to periods of Separation whilst they and their families are very proud of the fact that they wear raw Naval

Uniforms they feel that they’re making a huge difference those professional frustrations can sometimes mean that they look very attractive to to other people and and because there is this National shortage of of Engineers um then you know not surprisingly we can find ourselves losing out now we’re not complacent about that I

Don’t wish that to be the case we still have a lot of young people wishing to come and join the service because they recognize the apprenticeship schemes and the training we give is very attractive to them it’s a really positive investment and what an exciting way of

Doing it an apprenticeship scheme I met some of the young apprentices on board HMS Prince of Wales just a few weeks ago off the states off you know and they were living their best life my goodness me they were operating on board a fifth generation aircraft carrier off the

Eastern seab Board of the United States flying flying jets by and then just occasionally we went alongside and maybe they got to go and have an ice cream aore um you know what a fantastic investment and if we can bottle that enthusiasm and keep them properly supported and make them feel appreciated

And contribute then then I think we have a fighting chance but we have to be honest that in recent years occasionally we take our eye off the ball on this uh and then not surprisingly we’re reminded uh of their value to us thank you and finally on this Sarah after thank you

Admore you talked about young time to people Liv living the best life young officer been in the Navy 5 years now on his second 18month holdover in 5 years he’s been to see eight days he’s completed his seeking and Jupiter phases and was waiting for his operational flying training on the Merlin he

Believes he’ll be over 30 by the time he’s operational wildc cap pilot training he’s completed his initial training on Juno and Jupiter and is also on his second 18month holdover before starting wild cap training they are suggesting this is due to lack of observers I don’t know whether that’s

One of the recent pinch points but what is this saying how do we keep our young Talent who is paying for the retraining of these Pilots because of the length of the time of the hold over is it a scent is it the taxpayers what about operational Readiness and what are we

Saying to the Future Talent of the royal Navy when this is happening to them the flying training pipeline I think you you’ve tracked for for a number of years has not been where we’d want it to be together with with challenges in availability of the aircraft in themselves to train on uh

Has compounded to to you make that a really challenging situation as the as a titular head of the fleet aarm I live and breathe stories like that every day um so we are desperately trying to find rewarding rep employment for them in those holdovers so their career is not

Stagnating uh a number of them are doing other things and progressing other strands to their careers at the same time in navigation certificates of platforms to make them more employable we are starting to see that hold over shorten now but there is no doubt about

It in the last few years it has been unacceptable both in fastjet training and in rotary wing of getting people to the front line a combination of that of the of the pipeline in itself in its initial phases and then aircraft on the front line to train them off the fault

This time looks as if it’s down to the Royal Navy availability of aircraft and observers rather than as scent as I say two two strands to it the initial Ascent training Pipeline and then availability of Wildcat and Merlin on the front line to train them how are you going to hold

This young talent because you know at the age of 30 they’re not going to want to fly they’re going to work for the commercial airlines how are you holding them well I think we’re through that the worst of that those stories that you’re seeing those pipe those holdovers are

Now reducing and people are beginning to come through but in the last few years it has been a it has been a challenge as we’ve struggled to maintain numbers of aircraft on the front line to train them on these two examples are absolutely current yes two 18mon holdovers and

You’re saying that’s improving it is improving now so people that are coming through are not facing that length of hold over but okay that’s three years old the 18 months I’m not sitting here paying I don’t think either was saying we like it when I look at my own experience through

Flying training Steve’s experience through flying training that’s what it should have been and through a series of decisions made over a number of years we have found ourselves with a flying training system which I’m sure this committee has looked at separately which has been suboptimal a huge amount of

Work has gone on to recover it and I think we are seeing it but we have to I’m absolutely clear it’s very diff difficult for um for us to be anything other than frustrated because of this young Talent uh talent that we’re going to need into the future to deliver the

Navy of the future uh feeling as frustrated as they are as long as the frustration translates to action absolutely leave it with you yeah absolutely we certainly have looked at it and we’ll continue to look at it again latest report indeed I’d like on Recruitment and reserves a final

Question to Mar very quickly firstly Lord three billion for a carrier 1 and a half billion for nuclear submarine a billion for a type 26 none of this works unless you have enough people who are sufficiently qualified so recruitment is a challenge for the Royal Navy as it is for the

Other services there’s very long good article in Navy Lookout but just come out all about that I won’t try and read all of that out now the Army do it differently they outsourced it to capita effectually Nam to this committee as CP and the Public Accounts committee

Described the crap a contract as a Litany of failures you know where this is going there’s a proposal to have a tri service recruitment system uh the armed forces recruiting program in the future for which capita and others would bid would you rather keep a unilateral Royal Navy Recruiting system or would

You prefer to go into the tri service system given the track record of the Army’s experience so I breathe a s of relief at last time time round uh the Army wented alone uh but a huge amount was learned from that process and because much of it

Brutal but yes yes absolutely I was overseeing Navy Recruiting at the same time that Army Recruiting was grinding itself almost to a halt at one point um and uh my my view is that recruiting is only going to become more challenging as we go forward the you know we are in our

Battle for talent the national talent it’s not that this nation is short of talent Talent is that there’s many places for that talent to go and we need to make the Armed Forces as attractive a place as it possibly can be for for people to young people to come and and

Commit to it and therefore we need to make sure that the attract and engage process is as sophisticated and sharp as it possibly can and I support the armed forces recruiting program because that is where it is setting itself to be what I think we are very alive to and this is

A regular conversation at Chiefs is to make sure that the lessons that have been identified and learned not just from our experience but also from what the Australians have experienced the Canadians the new zealanders as they’ve gone to different recruiting systems are absolutely baked into ours so that we

Don’t make the same mistakes I am absolutely confident that the benefit statement that the Army entertained in 20134 whenever it was would look pretty similar to the benefits statement that we have today so it was about the implementation and execution of the program not the intent that was

There so whatever it takes to ensure that we give ourselves the best chance of recruiting the talent we need and the diversity of perspectives and and young people I I’m absolutely up for that what I’m pretty clear about also though is that Sailors recruit Sailors Marines recruit Marines it’s those stories that

Really matter if behind the scenes we’re employing really modern marketing intelligence we’re employing really sophisticated digital digital techniques to make sure we’re really targeted um that’s really important making sure that the pipeline to bring people in has got uh you know is as frictionless as as as

Possible in terms of the assessment Qui sir because we know you have to go the a the afrp program keeps slipping we understand privately it may now not go live until 2026 or even potentially 2027 so all the other arrangements are having to be run on as the professional head of the Navy

Even if we do go for that program are you concerned by how many years it’s slipping by if it means that we get the program right I I’m not concerned by the by the slip what it does mean for me is that I need to make sure that my current

Recruiting system as is as effective as possible and wherever we can draw learning forward then we need to exploit that and and the three recruiting organizations are already today exch Ching information and best practice wherever we can because we’re actually we’re in the same game which is to

Encourage people to come in where the king’s uniform and serve clearly I’d like them all to be Sailors or Marines but I recognize some might want to be soldiers and some might want to be aviators that’s that’s fine I’d rather they were coming in and doing that than

Going elsewhere because we want that talent and afrp is part of that program going forward and lastly is recruiting reserves more or less challenging than the regulars so at the moment um recruiting of reserves interestingly enough in some areas is proving easier because what they’re signposting is what a potential

Work uh terms and conditions of service in the future might look like which is not the traditional sort of linear model that I I’ve had as my career but something uh that is much more and the second sea ORD has been on record is calling it a zigzag career where you

Concern sometime in regular service sometime in reserve service sometime out in the commercial world doing something completely different and then coming back in and we need to be absolutely ready to embrace that because I think that is how people will want to work in the future when I look at my 20-some

Sons and I they look at that I went for I’ve been for one substantive job interview when I was 18 and I have been paid ever since on the result of that job interview that that’s just not in their psyche and when I look at some of the the

Challenges um and opportunities and risks that young people want to embrace with and all the rest of it then we’re going to have to go and the the hathorn thight uh renumeration study is to my my incentivization program is a fabulous opportunity for us to rethink what those

Careers are and what we see in the reserves I think is is giving us some really interesting Pathfinders to what a regular career might look like in the future we may I think your recruiters all those years ago made a good decision thank you chair mark thank you very much