'Chaotic' carrier programme - the 'biggest blow' to government credibility

10 May 2012

With ministers now switching to the F-35B fighter for Britain's future aircraft carriers, Jim Murphy says the government's approach is 'chaotic'. Here's what the Labour shadow defence secretary told the Commons

When the government do the right thing on defence they will have the support of these benches.

In politics you can often judge what government genuinely feels about their own policy not just by what they say but when they say it. They want us to believe that this is positive news and yet they announce it the very first day they can after the council elections. It must be the first ever example of a government waiting until the polls close to announce good news.

It is worth reminding the Secretary of State how he got here.

The government was elected promising a bigger Army but is delivering the smallest Army since the Boer war.

They have curtailed anti-piracy duties due to Royal Navy cuts.

The RAF has lost long-term surveillance capabilities.

On the defence budget, decisions this government has taken have increased costs.

Changes to the Astute Class submarines added a further £200 million.

The carrier u-turn has a reported £250 million.

On top of this they are failing to reform.

A defence procurement plan delayed for two years.

Last year the largest defence programmes were delayed by a combined 30 months and £500m over-runs.

And while hundreds of defence workers are losing their jobs up and down the country the government has no defence industrial strategy whatsoever.

The biggest blow to the government's defence credibility is the chaotic carrier programme.

Standing at the Dispatch Box the Prime Minister announced his plans to reverse Labour's carrier strike policy, scrap the Harrier, sell Ark Royal, build two carriers but mothball one, sack trainee pilots and downgrade British power at sea.

But this u-turn has now gone full circle.

And nothing has been gained.

Two years wasted.

In tough times a reported £250m squandered while Forces are having their allowances cut.

Harriers sold to the Americans for a fraction of their value.

International ridicule.

No jets on carriers for a decade.

You don't have to be a military strategist to know what these ships are meant to carry - the clue is in the name.

They said their policy was cheaper - but it was more expensive.

They said we would be interoperable with the French - but that their chosen jet couldn't even land on the French carrier.

The Prime Minister personally derided a policy they're now defending.

Military figures have warned weekly about these decisions. While our allies deployed Harriers from carriers off the coast of Libya we simply could not do so.

Mr Speaker the Government said Britain didn't need jump jets. Ministers scrapped the expertise to operate STOVL aircraft only now to decide to buy a new fleet of jump jets. We will need to retrain and redevelop the skills carelessly cast aside just two years ago. It is as incoherent as it is ludicrous.

His defence is that the facts have changed, but that is not the full story.

I know the advice the Prime Minister received, which was that the defence review policy was high risk and high cost and Ministers over-ruled it.

The Public Accounts Committee warned of rising costs.

The National Audit Office said the government had an "immature understanding" of costs.

The Defence Select Committee warned against strategic shrinkage.

The Prime Minister's decisions have cost British time, money, talent and prestige.

I know the Secretary of State always likes to blame someone else – he recently accused British families for causing the financial crash – but he cannot scapegoat the former Defence Secretary for this decision.

He has got to take some responsibility for the Prime Minister's mistakes.

He has nurtured a reputation as a spreadsheet king most at home over his paperwork so he needs to share some of it with us.

Will he publish a full breakdown of the costs of plans being abandoned?

Will he confirm that the cost of the u-turn is greater than the income from the sale of the Harrier?

How many new jets are being purchased?

Will he now publish the advice received at the time of the review in full?

Can he guarantee Britain will have continuous carrier strike capability from 2018?

If Britain will have two active aircraft carriers will more Royal Navy personnel be employed to make this possible?

Mr Speaker, the Secretary of State has said his government do the right thing when the facts change. But the facts haven't changed. Labour got it right and the government's policy has unravelled.

In recent weeks we have seen incompetence piled upon hubris.

From soldiers being sacked by email, to a discredited defence review and pension cuts for war widows, the government has lost its way.

Only a government who started a petrol crisis when trying to avoid one and whose idea of putting more police on the street is having thousands demonstrating outside Parliament would sell the Harriers and have no planes to fly off carriers for a decade.

Describing the governments defence policy as an omnishambles would be a compliment.

It is time the Prime Minister started to take responsibility. He should be here apologising for his incompetence.

HAVE YOUR SAY

10 May 2012

Bloody good job we had the empire/commonwealth and yanks to help us out in past WW's! Our politicians, throughout our history, seem incapable of getting past the 'muddle through' stage!!
Norman - UK

10 May 2012

Can't fault Jim on his delivery. Pretty damning and to the point. Even if Labour are just as guilty, its the forces and UK defence industry that that suffers.
AW Employee - Yeovil

10 May 2012

A nice summary Mr Murphy, but would your lot do any better?
Ian Skinner - Enfield

10 May 2012

The PM needs to do more than just apologize. Instead, he should be replaced, along with his Defence Minister, by people who genuinely understand Defence matters. That, of course, excludes the previous Defence Minister Fox.
FreedomLover - Walsall, UK

10 May 2012

I think Jim Murphy reads our blogs, however what would Labour do and how would they pay for it and all the other things they are promising the other departments???? Utter opportunism Mr Murphy you and your party are more of a joke than the current government!!!
Rob - Telford

10 May 2012

The desire to get the deficit down asap has blinded the government in to making some rash if not downright cavalier decisions regarding the country's defences. I'm well aware that there is not a bottomless pit of money to spend, but when you look at the size of the navy, its self evident that if a situation arises (and they do, don't they?)we wouldn't have the capability to respond in the way we would like. The SDSR was only a money saving exercise, which had that as it objective rather the security of the nation. For that the government is responsible, whether they like it or not. Mid term report, D- Must do better immediately.
Peter Hall - Worksop, UK

12 May 2012

Jim mirphy should stop holding back and tell them how it is!

... I'm still mighty ticked off by the sale of our Harriers by the way!
Steve - Peterborough

16 May 2012

Most of the problems which Jim Murphy mentions here have to be laid at the door of the MOD. Yes, they are incompetent. And they are clever at covering each others backsides. Examples will have to be made, I think. I suppose the correct tactic would be to single out one particulary incompetent but well connected official and use him (or her) to discredit the others.
J. Southworth - University of Hull

20 May 2012

J Southworth - so, perhaps the head of the DE&S Capital Ships team, then, as he's responsible for the decisions made within it? Except he's not an "official": he's a Commodore RN. If you're looking for a previous case where individuals were named and shamed, how about the Haddon-Cave enquiry, which identified 10 people who contributed to the loss of XV230. 5 were from the MOD, 3 from BAe and 2 from QinetiQ. Of the 5, 4 were Service officers, two of 4 star rank and one the Group Captain Nimrod IPT leader (subsequently promoted to Air Commodore). Only one was an "official", and a relatively junior one, put in a position he apparently wasn't properly qualified for and poorly supported by his uniformed superiors. Given the nature of his post, I'ld lay money he was ex-RAF himself.

Not one of the decisions catalogued above, with the possible exception of "changes to the Astute Class submarines", was taken by an "official". They were taken by politicians or senior Service officers.
Stan - York

21 May 2012

UK lawmakers dhould try to primarily utilize facts- instead of relying so much on speculation and unverified govt spokespersons' drivel- regarding thie UK's aircraft carrier project??

As part of this, in future:

- provide explicit, detailed comparisons of the projected number of man-hours required during 2018- 2030 for maintenance, servicing and repairs of BOTH the F-35C and F-35B for each hour of flight time of EACH variant of the F-35 fighter/bomber;

- stipulate in easy-to-understand terms what are the design requirements & technical hurdles that would have to be surmounted in order to fit the UK's 2 undergoing construction aircraft carriers with aircraft launch catapults and landing equipment;

- inform the public whether the UK's planned carriers have the energy generation capabilities required to operate electromagnetic aircraft launch catapults- particularly in combat situations- while the ship's engines are still providing power for the ship's propulsion;

- inform the public whether the fitting of electromagnetic aircraft launch catapults and landing equipment to the UK's planned carriers would have so adversely affected these vessels' centre of gravity and at-sea-stability that their sea worthiness would have been reduced to an unworkable level...

- inform the public what the differences in operating costs per flight hour are between F-35B, F-35C and F-18 E/F fighter/bombers...

- inform the public how many man-hours of maintenance, servicing and repairs are required CURRENTLY for each flight hour of the F-35B, F-35C and F-18 E/F fighter/bombers...

- inform the public how many man-hours of maintenance, servicing and repairs are PROJECTED TO BE REQUIRED DURING 2018- 2030 for each flight hour of the F-35B, F-35C and F-18 E/F fighter/bombers...

- inform the public what the differences in capabilities are between the F-35B, F-35C and F-18 E/F fighter/bombers....

- inform the public what the differences in purchase prices are between the F-35B, F-35C and F-18 E/F fighter/bombers....
Mr. Roderick V. Louis - Vancouver, BC, Canada

21 May 2012

CARRIER PROJECT & RELATED INFO SHOULD BE SOURCED BY MP's FROM OUTSIDE-OF-UK!!

On April 26-2012 the UK House of Commons' Public Accounts committee spent over an hour questioning Ms Ursula Brennan, Permanent Secretary UK Ministry of Defence, about the aircraft carrier project...

During over 60 minutes of quite appalling, astonishingly unprofessional discourse, Ms Brennan refused to provide answers to what were very reasonable and in-the-public-interest questions from committee members...

Of most relevance was the repeated-for-over-an-hour requests to Ms. Brennan to advise the committee how much money had been spent to date by the MoD on studies and preliminary design & construction work related to fitting the UK's 2 carriers with aircraft launch catapults and landing equipment...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9715000/9715540.stm

Considering the high-public-interest, why couldn't MP's obtain and publish this information from sources other than Ms Brennan and MoD officials??...

Why couldn't MP's travel to the U.S. and speak directly to/take evidence from the manufacturer of the electromagnetic aircraft launch catapults and landing equipment- General Atomics; F-35 main contractor- Lockheed; US Department of Defense officials; etc???

Why couldn't several of the Public Accounts Committee's members and several US's elected officials form a joint UK/US F-35 project oversight committee- made up of UK MPs and US Senators- charged with evaluating and regularly reporting on the F-35 project??
Mr. Roderick V. Louis - Vancouver, BC, Canada

26 May 2012

Stan-York

I think some clarification is required here. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who works at the MOD is an official, although they may also wear a uniform and be a serving member of the armed forces. I don't propose to get into complex arguments about semantics and job titles. I don't think it makes much difference to anything anyway, the issue here is competence or lack of it on the part of the decision makers.
You might expect people with a background in the military or defence industry to be more knowledgable about defence issues than most politicians. Or maybe not...certainly they are'nt always impartial in their judgement.
J. Southworth - University of Hull

26 May 2012

As someone with a deep respect for British Forces, particularly the RN I could not believe the appalling way the services have been treated by the current and past government. It may be too late for the Ark Royal but perhaps if someone had the guts to tell the Americans to show they were really Britains freind, they'd put the Harriers, spares, equipment and stores on thier ships and send them back to the UK then redeploy personnel back to the squadrons to operate of Illustrious until QE was ready to take them. If it takes going down on both knees and begging recently demobbed personnel to come back with cold hard cash bonuses perhaps this capability can be reestablished by the time QE commences her trials. And while thier at it the yanks could send some of their surplus P-3s your way gratis until they can sell you some P-8s? Pipe dreams I know but better out than in.

Then again, they might be desperate enough to prove they might be able to learn from thier mistakes.
Craig Lynch - Australia

30 May 2012

I think the key question with the CVF carriers is that of how the cost of converting the ships to catapult operation escalated from £2 billion to £5 billion in the space of 2 years. If the original figure was an intentional underestimate, intended to mousetrap the government into spending a lot more, that's indicative of corruption. If on the other hand, the error was genuine, then the people who made the estimate were incompetent. Take your choice.
It might well be convenient for some people to blame the whole business on former Defence Secretary Liam Fox, but it seems clear that he was aided and abetted by a lot of other people in the MOD and in industry and probably in the US as well.
J. Southworth - University of Hull

19 June 2012

With regard to the ongoing carrier saga, the one correct thing that came out of the SDR was the decision to install Emals, it was fully justified and extremely wise decision. But what's happened now? Why the change of direction? Why opt to purchase a far more expensive, but less capable aircraft? and in doing so restrict the capabilities of the largest Carriers ever built outside North America? Who is responsible for advising our completely inept politicians on this?? The outside Defence Contractors? There should be an in depth investigation into this matter, to establish the truth!!
Paul - UK

20 June 2012

EMALS is a great system. The only trouble is that it does'nt actually exist, as a proven piece of hardware that can be installed in a ship and expected to work reliably and economically over an extended period of time.
I have a feeling that it may turn out to be another case of "guess what guys! it turns out that this is going to to take 20 years and billions of dollars to get right! sorry about that!"
J. Southworth - University of Hull

16 July 2012

how many of these so called people in government got to be millionares?they were probably running the'banks before with their mates.argentina will attack the people of faulklands'again when britain is week have been there and they dont want to be under argitine rule
paul - south australia

28 July 2012

So the original idea was to get the F-35 together with other nations and take the benefit of the economies of scale. The F-35 was supposed to be a cheap replacement for the F-16, F-18 and Harrier in the US services. It turns out to be a lot more expensive than originally thought. According to this report, the price nearly doubled:

http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2012/07/09/f-35-nearly-doubles-in-cost-but-you-dont-know-thanks-to-its-rubber-baseline/

The projected unit costs have risen to 170 Billion dollars per plain. The F-35B version is way more complex and should cost around 200 Billion per plane.

There is a great alternative to this plane. Get a navalized version of the Eurofighter Typhoon. The specifications for the third tranch of planes has not been defined yet. See if you can replace those with navalized versions. That would save a lot of money.

What would be needed? Thrust vectoring control in order to reduce the landing speed. An arrestor hook and reenforced landing gear in order to survive landing on aircraft carriers. Added weight? Around 500 Kg. If this is a concern, you can take advantage of the more powerful EJ230 jet engine (around 20% more thrust). Keep the basic design of the queen elizabeth aircraft carrier with the sky jump. Add three to four arrestor cables on the flight deck.

You get yourself an aircraft that is superior to the F-35B in all respects except for stealth. The only drawback? "Interoperability with French carriers" This is probably not a prime concern of the British navy.

Additional benefit: You save a lot of jobs for British workers. You improve the capabilities of the Typhoon - thrust vectoring nozzle could be retrofitted on existing typhoons. You increase the chance of successful export of the Typhoon.

Good Day!
kikl - Germany

11 December 2012

Kiki - Germany

I think you'll find the cost of the F35B version is about US $200 million rather than $200 billion.

The Eurofighter could be redesigned for carrier operation. Thrust vectoring could be used to reduce the landing speed, as in the prototypes of the Grumman A6 Intruder. But the Eurofighter's limited internal fuel capacity would still be a problem I think.
J. Southworth - University of Hull