Royal Navy assault ships axed as Healey seeks defence savings

The Defence Secretary is blaming the cuts on the ‘dire inheritance’ left by the Tories

Two former Royal Navy flagships, a frigate and a pair of support tankers will be decommissioned in cost-saving measures announced by Defence Secretary John Healey.

The savings, which Mr Healey blamed on the “dire inheritance” left by the Tories, will see assault ships HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, which have both been flagships, decommissioned.

Ageing Type 23 frigate HMS Northumberland is beyond economic repair and will be decommissioned along with two Wave class tankers.

The Army’s Watchkeeper drones, which cost around £5 million each and have been in service for a decade but have been beset by problems and are effectively obsolete, will be grounded.

Helicopters will also be affected by the cuts, with the 14 oldest Chinook transport aircraft removed early from service and Puma’s lifespan not being extended beyond March 2025.

Mr Healey acknowledged the cuts came at a time of “war in Europe, growing Russian aggression, conflict in the Middle East and technology changing the nature of warfare” but said that showed the need for “increased resilience and readiness for the future”.

In a statement to MPs, Mr Healey warned that further cuts could be required but insisted he had the support of armed forces chiefs for the decisions he had made.

He said: “For too long our soldiers, sailors, aviators have been stuck with old, outdated equipment because ministers wouldn’t make the difficult decommissioning decisions.

“As technology advances at pace, we must move faster towards the future. So today, with full backing from our service chiefs, I can confirm that six outdated military capabilities will be taken out of services.

“These decisions are set to save the MoD £150 million over the next two years and up to £500 million over five years, savings that will be retained in full in defence.”

Mr Healey said he was dealing with a “dire inheritance, the state of the finances and the state of the forces often hidden to Parliament, billion pound black holes in defence plans, taxpayers’ funds being wasted, military morale down to record lows”.

The “common sense decisions” announced by the Defence Secretary may not be the last cuts announced.

The Government is carrying out a strategic defence review, which will set out the path to spending 2.5% of gross domestic product on defence – although no timetable has yet been set out for that spending commitment.

Mr Healey said: “These will not be the last difficult decisions I will have to make to fix the defence inheritance we were left with, but they will help get a grip of finances now and they will give greater scope to renew our forces for the future as we look towards the strategic defence review and to 2.5%.”

Albion and Bulwark were designed to allow Royal Marines to launch amphibious raids, but they were already effectively mothballed at a cost of £9 million a year.

Mr Healey said: “On current planning, neither was due to go to sea again before their planned out-of-service dates of 2033 and 2034.”

But in the Commons, Tories raised concerns about the impact of the decision on the Marines, and former defence committee chairman Sir Julian Lewis warned the absence of the assault ships could encourage an enemy “to try something like the Falklands in the future”.

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said the cuts meant “scrapping key defence capabilities and weakening our national security”.

Mr Healey said the Commando force will continue to be supported by three Bay Class auxiliary landing ship docks and RFA Argus.

The other vessels to be scrapped include RFA Wave Knight and Wave Ruler, which will be retired in March and have not been to sea since 2017 and 2022 respectively.

HMS Northumberland will also go out of service in March 2025, as structural damage makes her “uneconomical to repair”.

The Watchkeeper drones will be retired from March, as Mr Healey said technology has advanced at a “rapid rate” since they were introduced in 2010 and the Army will “rapidly switch to a new advanced capability”.

The fourteen oldest Chinooks will be “accelerated” out of service, and modern variants used by the Royal Air Force from 2027, while the Pumas will be replaced by the H-145 from 2026.

Matthew Savill, military sciences director at the Royal United Services Institute defence think tank, said the cuts mainly affected equipment that was approaching retirement and Watchkeeper was “probably obsolete”.

“But the fact that defence either can’t crew them, or is prepared to cut them to make very modest savings over five years in the current international environment, is an indication of just how tight resources must be in the MoD right now,” he added.

Published: 20/11/2024 by Radio NewsHub