HC Deb 09 March 1970 vol 797 cc1080-90

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. James Hamilton.]

11.22 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Wall (Haltemprice)

I owe an apology, or certainly should express my commiseration to, the Under-Secretary for being the cause of his making a third major speech during the same afternoon and evening. In last week's defence debate the Secretary of State placed great importance on the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Yet when we come to look at B.A.O.R. we find that the only true tactical nuclear weapon that it possesses is Honest John, an American-made free-flight rocket with a 15-mile range which was completed about 1953 and is now considered obsolete.

The Americans and the Germans, and, above all, the Russians, have longer range, lighter and more mobile tactical nuclear weapons. Thus, B.A.O.R. not only has to face a disparity with the Soviet army of two or three to one, but has to operate with semi-obsolete weapons in a sphere that the Secretary of State considers to be vital.

Unfortunately, much the same story is true about our Fleet submarines, which are all nuclear powered. The first, "Dreadnought", was completed in 1963, "Valiant" was commissioned in 1966, "Warspite" in 1967, and "Churchill" was commissioned this year. Four are under construction and the White Paper tells us that the order for the ninth will be placed shortly.

We were told in the Supplementary Statement on Defence Policy, 1967: From the middle 1970s the main striking power of the Navy, apart from Polaris submarines, will be provided by the growing force of Fleet submarines". Yet, during the following year, the rate of construction was reduced to about one every 18 months, and by the end of 1971 there will, according to the Daily Telegraph, be only seven completed instead of the 17 originally planned. To be fair, we should include the four Polaris submarines, but that still leaves us about six short.

I think that both sides of the House will agree that these are excellent vessels, costing from £20 to £25 million apiece. They are primarily designed to hunt enemy submarines and, in co-operation with surface warships, to protect convoys of merchant ships. These merchant ships must be protected from surface as well as underwater attack. Fleet submarines should, therefore, be armed with antisubmarine torpedoes, anti-ship torpedoes, and anti-ship missiles.

I turn, first, to the question of torpedoes. In answer to a Question on 4th February the Minister of Defence for Equipment said: … the anti-submarine torpedo … the Mark 23, entered service as recently as 1964."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th February, 1970; Vol. 794, c. 420.] I can find no reference to this torpedo in any Defence White Paper, but I understand, without going into any details, that It is an interim type which is relatively slow and short-ranged.

The anti-submarine torpedo specially designed for Fleet submarines was to be the Mk. 24 wireguided torpedo referred to in the 1966, 1967, and 1968 Defence White Papers, but, strangely, not mentioned in the 1969 White Paper, a fact which I referred to in my winding-up speech on the Navy Estimates that year. In reply, the Minister said: This torpedo, which was listed as a major development project in the 1968 Defence Estimates, is in production and is undergoing acceptance trials."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1969; Vol. 779, c. 1113.] That is the last official information that we had until late last year.

In the Daily Express of 13th December, 1969, Mr. Chapman Pincher, who, in spite of the Secretary of State's views, most people consider to be extraordinarily well informed, showed that in spite of 10 years' development this Mk. 24 torpedo project had gone wrong. His article said that the £50 million project had collapsed, that the Navy had been warned two years ago that the factory at Alexandria, in Dumbartonshire, would be incapable of handling so complicated a design, and he added that G.E.C. had been called in to redesign the torpedo, which would take at least two years.

Four days later the Minister of Defence for Equipment made a statement to the House that the production of the Mk. 24 torpedo had been suspended, that the entry of this weapon into service would be considerably delayed, and that the Government factory at Alexandria would close at the end of 1970.

On 4th February, the Minister reassured the House that urgent steps had been taken to set up a project-type organisation, but at the same time he said that their"— the Fleet submarines— current operational efficiency is unchanged…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th February, 1970; Vol. 794, c. 420.] This apparently means that, not having yet been equipped with the Mk. 24 torpedo, these submarines are as efficient, or as inefficient, as they ever were. The point is that these five vessels are, for some years to come, not to have the main weapons for which they were designed. The position is rather like a Chieftain tank being armed with a machine gun.

I do not for a moment attempt to blame the Minister or the Government for the failure of this advanced development project. It happens to all Governments. But I am surprised that the defects were not discovered sooner, and alarmed at what appears to be a cover-up operation, including the reference to the Mk. 23 torpedo. What is being done to provide adequate weapons as rapidly as possible? So much for the antisubmarine torpedo.

But the story does not end there. As the Minister of Defence for Equipment said in winding up the first day of our defence debate, these submarines also have to operate against surface ships, and for this purpose they are equipped with a different type of torpedo. These torpedoes are a development of the pre-war anti-ship torpedo, the Mk. 8, and this torpedo is, I understand, the same as the one basically designed in the 'thirties. In other words it, too, is rather obsolescent.

What is needed as well as the anti-ship torpedo is an anti-ship missile which can be fired submerged from a torpedo tube, which then takes to the air and can be exploded in mid-air and so destroy all communications systems in a fleet or convoy, or, alternatively, can drop back into the sea and act as a nuclear depth charge, somewhat similar to the American Subroc. I also referred to this last year, and the Minister, in his reply, said: Further progress will be made this year with studies into ways of improving the effectiveness of submarine launched anti-ship missiles, which were referred to in the Supplementary Defence Estimates of 1968. … The importance of this is well appreciated.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1969; Vol. 779, c. 1112.] This years' Defence White Paper refers to studies of naval requirements for anti-ship guided missiles but does not say whether these are to be carried by surface warships, by submarines, or by both.

Since then, there has been a further article in the Daily Express by Mr. Chapman Pincher, on 3rd March, saying that plans for a British anti-submarine missile have been scrapped and that we are now negotiating with the French to buy their missile, which seems to be based on the SUBROC principle. This is called the "Exocet", which the reference books tell us is designed to travel for more than 20 miles only 6 or 10 ft. above the water and to sink enemy ships before they can launch their own missiles.

Clearly, as well as modern high speed long range anti-ship torpedoes, some form of tactical nuclear weapon for use against ships or groups of ships is needed. I hope that the Minister will be able to clear up the present confusion as regards both the anti-ship torpedo and the anti-ship missile.

I sum up in this way. These submarines are of great importance to our national defence. We are, therefore, right to express concern at the reduced rate of building of these vessels and at the reported serious delays to the refits of H.M.S. "Dreadnought", the first of these ships to be taken in hand; at the lack of modern anti-submarine torpedoes at the end of a 10-year programme of development, and the apparent failure either to provide modern anti-ship torpedoes to replace the Mk. 8 or tactical anti-ship missiles, nuclear or conventional. I hope that the present unsatisfactory state of affairs has been exaggerated—by me and by the Press—but it is up to the Minister to allay the genuine anxieties and fears on this most important subject.

11.33 p.m.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles (Winchester)

My hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) has chosen a most appropriate subject for today's Adjournment debate. I, too, am sorry to keep the Minister out of his bunk but, as a one-time torpedo specialist myself, I understand something of the importance of the questions raised by my hon. Friend.

I, also, am a little suspicious about the circumstances of the delay to the Mk. 24 torpedo. In 1959, I was in command of H.M.S. "Vernon", the torpedo school, and the principle of wired guidance for submarine-launched torpedoes worked amazingly well then; a lot of work had been done on it, and it was an established principle as a means of control. In 1964, when I left the Navy, the Mk. 24 was but a gleam in the designer's eye, but I had heard about it. In that same year, H.M.S. "Valiant", the second hunter-killer, as we called them, was completed, so presumably, the development of the torpedo was keeping pace with the development of the submarine.

In 1966, the Mk. 24 was noted in the research and development projects enumerated in the White Paper. In 1968, there was a reference to the Mk. 24 and Mk. 31. Perhaps the Minister will say what happened to the Mk. 31. In July, 1969, we read that there was "no change in major projects".

Then, at the end of 1969, quite suddenly, after five years or more of development, it was announced that an extensive re-design had been found necessary. The curious feature to my mind is that the Royal Naval Torpedo Factory at Alexandria is a factory for production, not a research establishment. For the Mk. 24 to have gone there for production, it must have passed its design stage and reached the stage of production. Also, I feel that it could not have been a small pre-production order; Alexandria would not have closed for lack of a small order of that kind. It must have been an extensive full production order.

In the February 1966 Defence Review, there is a reference to the Weapons Development Committee, and it is said: Occasionally, it may be necessary to ask the Committee to review a project, if, for example, it becomes clear that particular features are disproportionately difficult or expensive to develop". I hope that the Minister will be able to announce to the House this evening that what has happened is a genuine design fault and not an economy. That is the essential point that I wanted to make.

11.35 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy (Dr. David Owen)

The subject of this debate has been covered slightly in the debates earlier.

I do not quarrel with the account by the hon. Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) of the events, except that I would stress that the delay in the development of the torpedo which led to the closure of the R.N.T.F., Alexandria, was due to design difficulties outside the control of the factory, and inasmuch as the Press statement made allegations about the factory which were unjustified, I pay tribute to the factory, which has set very high standards and given faithful service.

On the question of the production order, raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles), the issue is that we made a decision, because of the need to get this into the Fleet, to go to production. The torpedo armament of the Fleet submarine is composed of both antisubmarine torpedoes and anti-surface ship torpedoes. Currently, the anti-submarine torpedo is the Mk. 23, which came into service in 1964 designed as a single-shot homing weapon which is wire guided.

The anti-ship torpedo is the Mk. 8 mod. 4—a salvo weapon, the original version of which dates back to before the last war. Since then, of course, successive modifications have been incorporated into it and it remains one of the fastest torpedoes in the world. It continues to be an effective ship-sinking weapon.

This torpedo is widely used by other countries, including Australia, West Germany and Holland, and has had a successful export record in that we have sold it to eight different countries over the past 10 years. The Mk. 23 has been purchased by one other country, and the prospects for wider sales appear very good.

In the normal outfit of the SSN, there is a preponderance of Mk. 8 torpedoes. This is in recognition of the fact that it is a salvo weapon whereas the later Mk. 23 is a single-shot weapon. The Mk. 24 anti-submarine torpedo is the planned successor to the Mk. 23, and as the House knows—and as the hon. Member has reminded us—its introduction into service will now be later than we had earlier planned, and I will deal with this in some detail later.

The Mk. 24, too, will be a wire-guided homing torpedo, and in speed, range and depth it will represent a substantial advance on the Mk. 23.

With the measures we have already taken, we confidently expect the Mk. 24 to be ahead of any contemporary torpedo in most aspects of performance. We are also thinking of possible variants of it in a later timescale.

The question might be asked, "If the Mk. 23 torpedo needs to be superseded after a relatively short period of time, why has no replacement for the older Mk. 8 anti-ship torpedo been mentioned?" The answer, I suggest, is simple.

The speed of surface ships has not increased markedly over the last two or three decades, and the high speed of the Mk. 8 torpedo—it was well ahead of its time when first introduced—means that it remains effective as a ship-sinking weapon.

On the other hand, submarines can now travel both faster and deeper. Our anti-submarine torpedoes must, therefore, be able to match the threat posed by the newest generations of nuclear submarines. It is, of course, our intention to phase out the Mk. 8 torpedo in due course, and we have studies going on at present aimed at producing a number of options which will enable us to select the most promising solution.

As was announced to the House on Wednesday, 17th December, an extensive redesign of the Mk. 24 torpedo has been found necessary, and production has been suspended. Initial studies on the Mk. 24 torpedo began in 1959. The new torpedo is a very complicated weapon which may be compared with a guided missile.

I do not need to emphasise to the House that programmes of this kind inevitably involve a great deal of experimentation. Certain technical problems have, however, arisen and it is these that have resulted in the programme being delayed.

I recognise that it is always tiresome when Ministers plead security reasons for not going into detail on the precise technical difficulties that have arisen, but I believe that the House will understand that in this case, where we are designing a heavy anti-submarine torpedo, for obvious reasons I cannot disclose details on these technical points.

We are, however, confident that the problems can be overcome, but it is impossible to give a precise time scale. We had to go into this when dealing with the question of the closure of the factory.

As with all naval weapon projects, the Director General Weapons is responsible for the Mk. 24 torpedo programme to the Controller of the Navy, and both myself and my hon. Friend the Minister of Defence for Equipment have been closely involved in the arrangements which have been made to strengthen the management of the project. A project-type organisation of the same pattern which proved so successful in the context of the Polaris programme has been established. Sir Rowland Baker, who was previously closely associated with the Polaris programme, was asked to advise on the future of the project, and his views have been fully taken into account.

I will not comment too deeply on the operational aspects of this. We have always known that we were trying to develop a highly-sophisticated weapon. We must persevere, learn what lessons there are to be learnt from the problems that we now face, and hope to remedy the defect as soon as possible.

It has not reduced the present operational efficiency of the Fleet submarine or our conventional powered submarines. In 1964, we introduced a A/S new torpedo, but, clearly, the delay to the Mk. 24 is a setback to our plans for the future; but I do not think we should exaggerate the extent of this difficulty. Just as to talk about the Chieftain Tank as being armed only with machine guns is to exaggerate the problem that we face.

By concentrating on the Mk. 24 torpedo one should beware of forgetting that the nuclear powered Fleet submarine is itself a complete weapon platform system in which its sensors and armament are complementary.

The introduction of the faster, deeper diving nuclear-powered submarine provides a covert means of prolonged surveillance of both submarine and surface ship activity. The S.S.N. provides the most effective vehicle for long range sonar detection equipment, being able to select the optimum operating depth with regard to sea conditions. Furthermore, it is unaffected by weather or surface sea states and hostile air supremacy.

An S.S.N. operating independently or in conjunction with other submarines, aircraft or surface ships can hunt, detect and attack enemy submarines. Operating with surface ships, the S.S.N. can form an integral part of the anti-submarine force. All this demonstrates the particular versatility of the Fleet submarine and the ability to undertake the rôles assigned to it.

It also demonstrates the need for us to look at other means of weapon systems for Fleet submarines which the hon. Member mentioned. He knows that we have studies in hand. He asked whether these included ship launched or submarine launched systems. These are being studied and the studies are comprehensive. They will cover all these practical options. The sort of weapon system that he outlined is one at which we have been looking. He should not be too upset that reference has been made in two Defence White Papers, but there is nothing concrete to show yet. We are dealing with a highly-sophisticated technology, which has never before been attempted. There are missiles launched from submarines in other navies, but these are only when the submarine is surfaced. They may possibly be awash, but they are not guided missiles, launched from beneath the water.

The basis of the hon. Member's case is that we have here a very expensive submarine—a submarine for which we make sacrifices in the rest of the Fleet, and this needs a sophisticated armament which balances all the capital investment which we have made in the Fleet submarines.

A question was asked about the Mk. 31. This is an air-launched torpedo and. as such, has no relevance to the problem in hand. Dealing with Exocet, the Minister of Defence for Equipment has already said that we are always interested in weapons introduced by our friends. We will look at it. When our studies are completed we will have all the basic information on which to take decisions.

I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite will accept that this is an area in which we are well aware of the problems. We look on the problem of the Mk. 24 as a setback, but we hope and believe that it can be cleared up. I would emphasise that there is no other Navy with a torpedo of the sophistication that we hope to have for the Mk. 24. We are in the lead in developing this highly-sophisticated torpedo. It has now been put back. If we can produce it in a fairly short time there is every expectation that our Fleet submarines will be well equipped with a more advanced weapon system. I hope that this is the case.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at a quarter to Twelve o'clock.