HL Deb 31 July 1958 vol 211 cc624-53

5.34 p.m.

THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY rose to move to resolve, That in the opinion of this House the selling and scrapping of ships of the Reserve Fleet has gone far enough, and, under prevailing conditions, is now becoming a national danger. The noble and gallant Earl said: My Lords, my object in bringing this subject up again so soon after the debate of about a fortnight ago is because the several very unsatisfactory answers that were given then were not debated in any way. I would ask the House to note the words in my Motion. "under prevailing conditions", by which I mean I am not in any way trying to criticise what steps are being taken to provide the Commonwealth with a nuclear Navy. I am going to confine my remarks entirely to the present time. I am not able or qualified in any way to criticise the modern weapons and ships. In the debate the First Lord said, in addressing the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough: Are you prepared or does the country want to spend very much larger sums at the present time?

I think the answer to that question is that the country has not had any opportunity of forming an opinion. It has not been given the facts which will enable it to form a judgment. Anyone reading the Explanatory Statement made on the Estimates, unless he were well-informed, could hardly fail to be under the illusion that all was well and that we have a modern Navy; or, if we have not actually got it, that we are just about to possess a modern Navy strong enough to protect our essential interests at sea and to guard our communications should we unhappily become engaged in a global war. But that, of course, is not the case. We have drastically reduced our conventional Navy, and we have not yet got the start of a nuclear Navy. We are in the position of having fallen between two stools—never a comfortable position to occupy.

As to the dates which have been given for the completion of vessels and for the completion of modern missiles, I would point out that we shall not have a nucleus of modern vessels for years to come. During the period of our rearmament there will undoubtedly be several setbacks and disappointments. That is inevitable. There are great difficulties to overcome, and we cannot expect to go sailing through with a fair wind. But is there not the best of all reasons for keeping what we have until we can replace it with something better?

The kind of case I have in my mind is that of the striker aeroplanes which were approved by the Navy in 1955, but no production has yet started. I fully understand that it is due to unforeseen happenings, but we must expect those. We may, of course, be lucky and win the gamble against time—for that is what it is—but in the state of the world at present I submit that the odds are heavily against us. We have been reminded by the First Lord that our very existence depends upon our ability to pass freely and safely across the ocean routes, and that it is the business of the Navy, as it always has been, to maintain this freedom. But I add this proviso—provided they are given the means to do it at the proper time; and that is certainly not the case at the present. The policy of this "run-down" is to take away even what they have.

The views that were put forward in the recent debate cannot, in view of the experience of the various speakers, be pushed on one side. The Motion was moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, who has a unique knowledge of naval affairs and of defence matters, probably unequalled in the United Kingdom except by that of Sir Winston Churchill. He said in his remarks [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 209 (No. 74), col. 717] that it stands out a mile that the main purpose of the Government, through its Treasury and the Ministry of Defence, is to drag down the strength of the Fleet the whole time. I do not think it could be better put.

The noble Lord, Lord Teynham, then spoke and supported that view. He was followed by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, who was the leading sailor of his time and the Minister of Defence in the early stages of the war, and he certainly did not agree with the policies put forward now. He was followed by the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Cunningham of Hyndhope, the outstanding naval commander of the last war and First Sea Lord in its later stages. He gave many facts and figures to show why he considered [col. 753] that unacceptable risks were being run at sea. There is no real need for me to give your Lordships the figures again, for we have it from the First Lord, who, speaking on the Royal Navy and Dominion Navies, said: I think it is fair to say that this is a force roughly comparable to the pre-war Royal Navy.

Well, "roughly" is an elastic word, but, in any case, even if we accept this comparison, surely the First Lord stands condemned out of his own mouth. If there was one thing that stood out crystal clear at the beginning of the last war, it was the absolutely inadequate number of the anti-submarine and escort vessels we had. In consequence, we had to appeal to the United States to let us have fifty destroyers, which they did. But how easy that request might have been short-circuited if a lesser mart had been President of the United States at that time! After we had received those destroyers and they had gone into action, we find this directive to the Admiralty from the Minister of Defence: In view of the great need for larger numbers of escorting destroyers, the better equipping of the American destroyers must be held up until this critical period has been passed. That was eighteen months afterwards.

Less than a week ago President Eisenhower told the Canadian Parliament that: We stand at a pivotal point in history. All we believe in is challenged as it has never been challenged before. On the same day we find Mr. Khrushchev warning the United States that they are on the brink of war. Now we have this crisis upon us, to show how right Mr. Khrushchev was. We have certainly chosen an extraordinary year in which to cut down our three military Forces. If the Summit Conference does manage to avoid war, then let us view our narrow escape as a warning and reconsider our defence policy.

We learn that it is the policy of the Government that the British Navy is to be content with the rôle of an antisubmarine force. Well, if that is so, let it be so. But let us be ready to carry it out from the very first, and not to have to rely again on the mixed bag of ships we had to use at the beginning of the late war. Yet we are selling or are just about to sell or scrap some thirty frigates, destroyers and corvettes—ships built for anti-submarine work—not because they are useless or unsuitable, but as was said in another place, because "they are surplus to requirements". All that I can say to that is, God help us!

Many noble Lords comfort themselves with the thought of, in the First Lord's words, "…the growing strength of the Commonwealth Navies" and the help we shall get from the United States of America. The Commonwealth Navies are very small forces and they have sufficient work to carry on in their own countries. They have long coastlines, many of their cities are vulnerable from the sea, they have coastal trade to look after and they will be fully occupied. They will not send ships over here. They had to recall their divisions in the last war. As regards the United States of America, do not forget that there are one million soldiers who will have to be brought straight across, with a vast amount of stores and ammunition, and if they do not come quickly there may be another Dunkirk—that is not by any means an impossibility.

We get such contradictory statements about the rundown of the Royal Navy. We are told that carriers are the core of the Fleet. Yet we are scrapping six carriers and intend to have only six, although we know that that number was quite insufficient in the late war. We finished the late war with double the number we started with and the Americans trebled their number. Now we are told that six carriers will go because again they are "surplus to the requirements of the Navy." There is H.M.S. "Warrior", about which my noble friend Lord Howe asked some pertinent questions. What is the truth about this ship? We know that she was one of the most recent of the group finished in 1945 and large sums were spent on her since then—some £800,000. In an obviously inspired article by a well-known naval correspondent, we are told that she is too old, too slow, too small and structurally weak to operate existing naval aircraft. Yet we are trying to sell her. After that description, I do not see who is going to buy her.

The First Lord told us that helicopters "vastly extend the destroying range of convoy escorts" and that helicopters will be useful not only against conventional submarines but also against nuclear submarines. The "Warrior" has been flying helicopters in recent years and she is certainly not too slow or too old to work with 10 to 12-knot convoys, several of which were maintained in the last war and several of which will have to be maintained in the next war. Are we asked to believe that none of the other carriers could be used either for transport work or for convoy work, flying, helicopters and so with an extended range? Of course, they both could and should.

Why are these ships in such a bad state? Who is responsible for it? I happen to be interested in this matter because for many years I was commander in charge of the Reserve Fleet and I had to travel about and look at the ships in reserve. I do not remember going aboard ships that were falling to pieces. They were mostly in good order and ready. The destroyers in the first line were at four days' notice. Do your Lordships realise that all the battleships and battle cruisers that started the late war, except the "Nelson" and the "Rodney", were over twenty years of age, and so were many of the cruisers? Yet two classes of destroyer—" W "and V"—were far better ships than the 50 destroyers we were so glad to get from the United States of America.

Before leaving the carriers, I would remind your Lordships of how quickly the "Courageous" was lost at the beginning of the late war. I will not at this time give your Lordships an account of the incident because it is getting late. The "Courageous" was lost through having to be used with the "Ark Royal" to help anti-submarine vessels, which were far too few, to repel an attack by German submarines on our shipping. They had a rich harvest. It might be asked why the "Courageous" was not escorted when she was torpedoed and went down with her captain and over 500 officers and men. She was escorted by four destroyers, but two of them had to be sent to a large merchant ship which was not escorted at all. In the four months at the end of 1939 we lost 222 of our merchant ships. The Germans were then using 60 submarines, not 260, as the Russians might well be using.

Mr. Khrushchev has told the United States (I agree that this is a little outside my domain) that we are on the brink of war. Is it not just possible that all this talk about Summit meetings is a cloak and a smokescreen under which the Russian submarines are rushing to their war stations? I suppose it would he indiscreet to ask the First Lord if he has any news of where the Russian submarines are now. That is a possibility, and if it turned out to be the case where should we be? We should have to withstand a far more serious attack than we had to withstand in 1939, and at that time we had had a year to prepare for the attack. The majority of the ships that would be used against us would be the conventional types, and the ships that we have of the conventional types, which we are busy destroying so fast, would be much more useful to us than those on the drawing board, ordered, half-completed or not laid down. And that is the state of our new Navy.

It is not much use considering numbers if you do not also look at the geographical position. We have world-wide interests. Some of them have been taken from us by our sister nations, and no doubt our Allies will assist when they can and if it does not interfere with their own arrangements. But a potential enemy has stated what his object at sea will be—namely, to cut the Atlantic communications. For that purpose, he has built up a powerful submarine fleet which now has such numbers of submarines that it can well afford supply forces to contain the American and Canadian forces in the Pacific, and to watch over their long coastlines and their cities and harbours, many of which are vulnerable from the sea. We may be sure that if those cities are not content with the protection they are given they will not remain silent. I do not suppose many of your Lordships will remember the Spanish-American war, but I happen to remember it. The point of mentioning it is the tremendous uproar which the Americans made when four old Spanish cruisers went out of the Spanish ports and crossed the Atlantic. An energetic Russian commander with imagination could certainly keep double his own force fully occupied on the Canadian Pacific coast, if he wished to do so.

We have been told officially by the British and American officers who took part in the recent exercises designed to test out the point of numbers, et cetera that we have not nearly enough aircraft or ships for our needs in the anti-submarine campaign: the words used were "desperately short". But Whitehall knows better and is now complacently selling or scrapping some thirty frigates or corvettes; and according to the latest information I have, they are now going to sell some twenty-six motor torpedo boats, some of which were finished only a few years ago.

I read recently that the Minister of Defence had been down to Portland and witnessed exercises by the anti-submarine school between a frigate and a sub-marine. You will understand, my Lords, that when an establishment is told that a "V.I.P." is coming down to see their work they do not put their most inefficient men on to work the instruments; they are probably members of the staff who know every move of the game. But how different the results would be if it were done by, say, half-seasick young seamen, who had just been through war training, in a small, stuffy compartment in a small vessel, in a medium sea in the middle of the Atlantic ! A similar visit was paid by a V.I.P. to the same establishment in 1936, with the result that the nation was told that "we had the measure of the submarines" and that "we should never again be troubled by them as we were in 1917". Let us hope that this last visit will not result in similar opinions being formed and acted upon. But I fear the worst; it would be a good excuse to get rid of more ships.

It was not long after these optimistic statements about the limitations of the submarine were made that we were only too glad to get the fifty old American destroyers, which were about to be scrapped, but which rendered us good service and really pulled us through. I wish to read to your Lordships an account of those destroyers as they were taken over: The American destroyers all belonged to the era of the 1914–18 War; they had not been fully modernised and only essential work had been done on them; none were Asdic fitted, and their guns and torpedoes were by no means efficient. Our need for escort vessels was so acute that any type of ship with a turn of speed with even rudimentary anti-submarine performance and obsolete guns was most welcome. The gift was of immediate value. My Lords, let those who, for some reason—I cannot discover what it is—think that a ship is quite useless when she reaches the age of twenty—" reaching her limit "is the expression used—ponder on these words. There is much more that I could say on this subject, but I will not. I am not trying to urge a building programme, but merely that we should keep what we have and make the best of it. The Royal Navy must be unique among fighting services in not having any reserve—I am not speaking of men (we are well off there), but of ships; and sailors who have no ships are not of much use. We are told that the Active Fleet will be replenished; but replenishment is different from reinforcement. I am getting "off my chest" what I have wanted to say for a long time, because I know that in a few hours' time Parliament will be dispersing. When we come back and ask, "Where is this or that ship?" we shall be told: "Oh, scrapped and broken up long ago." They have three months to do it in, and I am sure that it will be well done.

When I divide the House, I hope your Lordships will support me in saying that you do not approve of the naval policy in so far as scrapping the Reserve Fleet is concerned. One thing that is often overlooked, and I am afraid is being overlooked now, in studying this situation, is that we have 50 million people to feed. We have to get the food to them. We shall have our roads and railways dislocated, and perhaps our harbours destroyed; but the food must still come in. All the small ships of the mercantile type will be needed to run in cargoes from the ships at sea and to get them on to the roads; and all the small men-of-war to protect the ships as they lie off to tranship the cargo. There will be a tremendous demand, greater than ever before, for small ships. I suggest that my Resolution, if it could be carried, would remind the Government that it is not quite the plain sailing they think to build new ships which will be ready in three or five years' time, and "never mind the old ones". I beg to move.

Moved to resolve, That in the opinion of this House the selling and scrapping of ships of the Reserve Fleet has gone far enough, and, under prevailing conditions, is now becoming a national danger.—(The Earl of Cork and Orrery.)

6.0 p.m.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

My Lords, I must say that I could have wished we had a very large attendance to listen to the speech from the noble and gallant Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery. He has made a remarkable presentation of his case out of a very great experience. He joined the Royal Navy when I was two years old—and look at him now ! He looks years younger than I do. He has been Admiral of the Fleet for twenty years, with great war service in both wars, and speaks from an experience and personal example that takes a great deal to match. The speech that he has made to your Lordships tonight—the few of you who are here—is worth sending out to the Nation. The safety of our country and the minimum requirements of our overseas and on-the-seas safety are the concern of every Party and the nation as a whole. I know that there would be many people in my own Labour Party who would not go all the way with my own views upon the matter which the Admiral of the Fleet has been presenting to us.

I was at the Admiralty altogether for nearly nine years, in charge of the political administration of the Board of Admiralty. The longer I was there, the more I was convinced that, come what may, our position as a nation, our geographical situation, our overseas communications and the requirements of our Commonwealth and foreign trade, are such that not only have we an insistent demand upon us in the interests of our own people at home and abroad to keep the minimum strength required for the maintenance of our free sea communications, but from our actual experience we have also to be ready in war time to become the complete maid-of-all-work to the other Services, always filling the gap when necessity arises.

We have had long, detailed and interesting histories of the war, written from different points of view. We have had them from Sir Winston Churchill, and we have had the Official Naval History of the War. I recognise that these books, fascinating as they are, often make long and heavy reading to the ordinary members of the public. Following up the general ground covered by the noble and gallant Earl, I should like to see all people read the short history of the last naval war written by Lieutenant Commander Campbell, now Librarian at the Admiralty, an ex-submarine officer who was injured, not in war time but in peace time, and who has given much of his life to the study of these matters.

Over and over again when there was a disaster—not a Naval disaster, but an Army disaster, and sometimes a miscarriage of air capacity for the time being—it was the Navy that had to be ready to come to the help of the others. Often we were asked to mount great naval forces to support our main aggressive objectives overseas, just at the very moment when we were stretched to the utmost to defend our bare sea communications to save us from starvation. That was happening over and over again. I was thinking of those days as the noble Earl was speaking this afternoon, and looking back to a meeting we had when we were attempting to mount very heavy naval escorts to a big campaign.

Speaking for the Board of Admiralty, I raised the difficulties that would have to be faced and other tasks which might have to be undertaken in the daily watch on our food and war supplies. I remember that we were gathered at a particular meeting and Sir Winston Churchill said: "That is all very true." He turned to me and said, "It has got to be done. Don't forget your name is Albert Victor". That was a great spirit, but, as the noble and gallant Earl has pointed out, if you have not got the right stuff at the right moment, human sacrifice alone cannot do the job effectively.

Over arid over again we had cases in the Mediterranean where armies had to be put in and armies had to be taken out. We had a great story running in the war of a Jack Tar who suddenly burst into a place within the meaning of the Act to have some refreshment. In between the air raids two civilians had been quarrelling about who was prior to the other in the way of armed service to the Crown. One was against the Army, and one was against the Air Force. Then Jack Tar came in and they put the question to him about the Army. Jack said, "Well, the Army is all right. We puts 'em in and we takes 'em out." It is a repetition of that kind of thing right through our operations which makes us feel certain that we must equip our Fleet to such an extent that it can meet all the obligations that can be reasonably foreseen.

In the case of the opening of the war of 1914–18, we were certainly not sufficiently equipped to meet all the requirements. Yet if it had not been for the London Treaty in 1930 (though the Labour Government were often severely blamed because, it was said, we had not got enough out of the Treaty) which made provision for a specific tonnage of cruisers—315,000 tons, I think the figure was—a minimum of 150,000 tons of destroyers, and a laying down of one new flotilla of destroyers per annum, we should have been in dire straits in 1939. Every credit is due to the noble Lord who sits in this House for the fact that he saw to it that the programme was carried out up to 1935. I think the present First Lord of the Admiralty will be ill-advised if he is not prepared to stand, whatever the views of his Party may be (some of us have had in the past to stand against Party views) to see that the Navy is properly equipped with the minimum requirements.

May I take some of the categories? Let me take, as an outstanding example, the requirement of anti-submarine craft. As I said in the debate on June 11 (when, unfortunately, the noble and gallant Earl was unable to speak), the programme so far carried out by the Admiralty, of converting the older, faster destroyers into very fast frigates, with proper equipment, is a very good start on the way to making provision—and we must never examine these questions without taking into due account what has been done. But when I look at the actual number of destroyers and fast frigates which are available to-day, with a potential strength of 360 to 400 submarines likely to be more or less ready at the outbreak of a conflict, then I would say, with my experience in the last war, it would be quite insufficient.

The noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, has reminded us what a sigh of relief there was and what an actual reinforcement was received when we bartered away 99 years' lease of our possessions in the West Indies for 50 very old destroyers. It is true that they brought some relief, but they had to be much in our dockyards to be made fit for service. The amount of time needed for repair was astonishing. I say, without fear of contradiction, that the old "V" and "W" class destroyers of the Reserve Fleet, kept more or less in reserve ever since 1919, were far better for us than any of the Town class destroyers from the United States. You would be very well advised not to take out of moth-balls any destroyer or frigate that can be reasonably cheaply maintained, because they will always be effective, even at their present speeds, against the submarines that are likely to appear.

It is all very well to talk about the new forms of protection for our sea communications against submarine attacks. I think I indicated enough to the noble Earl, the First Lord of the Admiralty, on June 11 to show that I have some doubt, at any rate, about the efficacy of attacks against submarines by helicopters. It is true you can give, in peace time, demonstrations that rather capture the imagination. But what a difference takes place on a dark night when the modern submarine steers straight ahead of a fleet and submerges at once, after firing starboard and port or forward torpedoes, firing from the front and suddenly disappearing! Where is the helicopter in such circumstances as those? If the helicopter is used in daylight, what sort of effective action can it take compared to the proper, regular provision of the escort carrier aircraft for spotting, for bombing and for generally keeping the convoys in order?

If the helicopter, in daylight or even bright moonlight, has to hover to become an attacking force on a submarine, do you think the modern submarine is not in those circumstances going to carry something near a 4-inch gun, certainly nothing of less than the elevation and power of the Bofors? At the height at which helicopters can be effective they would be, in my view, little removed from what naval officers described to me in 1940—merely sitting birds as a target. I had to consider the matter myself with great care when representations were made to me. When we had not anything like the ordinary escort and reconnaissance aircraft we needed, people were suggesting trying helicopters for the purpose, even before the Sikorsky (the only one in existence of a practical character) had demonstrated that it could carry any great load, and certainly not the heavy bombs that would be required to be effective if it were not shot down as a sitting bird. The helicopter will require a lot more demonstration than has yet been given before it can excuse the provision of the effective destroyer and the effective frigate and the retention of sufficient escort carriers to go with the convoys.

I look back to my memories of those early days when we had nothing effective in the way of escort carriers. The noble Earl is quite right about the "Glorious." Carriers of that sort are not suitable carriers for escort work. They can be used sometimes, sometimes even at greater distances, but they have not the close effect of the kind of escort carriers which, after the disaster of PQ 17 convoy to Russia, became steadily and more widely used, and became so effective that, in spite of the early disasters to convoys to Russia, by the end of the whole campaign the American and British Navies combined had delivered to Russia 94 per cent. of all the cargoes consigned. It is an amazing record. How much that had to do with the proper use of the escort carrier!

We lost the "Activity", the noble Earl will remember, after only about four months in service. I remember all my anxiety over the fitting out, when she was going to sea for the first time, wondering how soon she would get to sea and do things. She lasted four months. But she did enormous damage to the enemy. Then think of the "Avenger" and ships of that kind: they all went to build up a gradually improving situation in our safe convoy deliveries, a reduction in our convoy casualties and gradual relief of the enormous burden in our own country. At times I had three million tons of merchant shipping on my hands, not under repair but awaiting repair. How often can that be too easily forgotten ! It is an enormous task.

I beg the House, I beg the members of any political Party, to consider that there must be certainly a minimum strength. I do not want to go so far as the noble Earl and say, "Do not build any so long as you keep others"; I do not think he meant to convey that impression. Nevertheless, if you are short of the right amount of money in a particular year to extend widely your capital building, why on earth throw away what you have? You do not know when the challenge will come. Twice in my view, in the last few years, even with the so-called high efficiency of our present forces on their reduced scale, we have seen, in Suez and other directions, that they are insufficient even for limited operations and for readiness of an immediate and effective character. I hope that more attention will be paid to this matter.

I had intended to put a Motion on the Paper to-day, to follow the debate in another place last Monday on the general organisation of defence as laid down in the published White Paper of July. I must say that I am wholly dissatisfied with the progress which is being made in providing for the minimum forces required. I cannot on this Motion discuss the strength of the other Services; that would be trying the patience of your Lordships too much, because the Motion is confined to the Royal Navy. But certainly somewhere in the state of Denmark, as they say, things have gone a bit wrong. I do not believe that the setting up of a reorganised high Staff under the Minister of Defence is going to improve the situation. What we really want is sound, voluntary co-operation between the Services, and if you are going to have a permanent Staff Officer to the Minister of Defence at the top he will now always have literally two votes against one in the Chiefs of Staff, because he will probably vote, in the first instance, for his own opinion, as an air officer advising the Minister of Defence, and he will have strong support probably from the other Chief of Staff, the Marshal of the Royal Air Force, who happens to be the Chief of Staff for his own Service at the same time.

When I was Minister of Defence, we never had any difficulty at all in letting senior staff officers in each Service succeed one another as they retired. We got a "club" of really co-operative officers on the staff. It would be quite sufficient for the professional, secretarial side of the Ministry of Defence to have a well-qualified officer of whichever force was available, but not with the voting strength as set out in the last Conference with the Minister of Defence. It would be a quite unfair position to set up. I feel that something has gone wrong in that connection, and that certainly the Royal Navy, in face of an enormous potential demand upon their powers and efficiency, is left with a diminishing strength which does not provide the minimum required for our general safety. I beg the First Lord of the Admiralty to think again. I beg him to accept that we are not attacking the Board of Admiralty—though we may do one day: we may have to—because we feel that in regard to the rationing of the Supply money which is available for defence the Admiralty has not been getting its proper share.

The First Lord's White Paper speaks of the aircraft carrier being the core of the Fleet. Apparently the country will never have more than about three in commission—it may he four; there may be one in reserve and one under repair. Perhaps the First Lord will be able to tell us how he proposes to manage with his total overall number of six retained carriers. Compare that total to our programme in the Admiralty when we really found what we were up against in a war even of the calibre of the last one, when we lost the services of carriers like the "Ark Royal", which we lost altogether, the "Glorious", the "Courageous", the "Formidable" and the "Illustrious", after months and months of concentrated attacks upon them as they tried to defend the passage of troops in the Mediterranean. Taking our experience then, what happened? We laid down a programme—because we wanted to build them as rapidly as we could—of 25 light fleet aircraft carriers of 25,000 tons, capable of a really fast speed. To-day, those light fleet aircraft carriers could be reasonably modified for keeping in reserve and, in the event of a sudden conflict, could be used for a multitude of purposes. I do not believe that can be denied.

Even to-day the First Lord has to be made a maid-of-all-work. When a little trouble is brewing, whatever the result of political policy may be, the Services have to do their duty by their Government and to carry out their commands. When you have not an airlift, you send for your aircraft carrier and fill it up with all the stuff you want for the Army and the Air Force. Off goes the aircraft carrier. If you want to relieve the position in Libya, you send for the Royal Marine Commando, and then wait until you can get the help of a lift. I think it was the Sussex Regiment which was sent to Libya. How did they get there? The Navy took them. If there is any trouble in the West Indies, who deals with it? Does the Air Force deal with it from this country? Not likely ! I have seen that happen in all kinds of ways in regard to relieving. A few years ago I remember that we even sent to the West Indies the old "Devonshire"—the old County class 8-gun cruiser, manned in the main, for that particular trip, by cadets from Dartmouth. But it got the relief there.

The Navy is necessary to this country; it is necessary for its defence. It is impossible to believe that we shall ever be in a position to command the immediate services of Allied navies to meet our own requirements. We shall be able to cooperate in the course of the Alliance so as not to have too much duplication between the two, but think of what would happen if the same situation arose as in 1940. It was never anticipated in 1938 by the Government, when we did not go to the help of Czechoslovakia at the right time, that by 1940 we should be alone. My own words in another place, on October 8, 1938, were.: If you go on in this way you will go into a war, and when you have been in it a very short time you will find yourselves standing alone. Unfortunately, those words came true, and we were left alone. All that stood between this country and utter defeat was the sacrifice of a handful of men in the fighter squadrons of the Air Force and the gallant fellows in a Fleet that stood all the attacks of the enemy, whatever the losses incurred. I beg my colleagues in the House Lords to get the Government to think again.

6.27 p.m.

EARL HOWE

My Lords, we have certainly listened to a most remarkable speech from the Leader of the Opposition in this House. When the White Paper on Defence was published, and the Minister of Defence stated that the rôle of the Navy in a future war was uncertain, and that sort of thing, it altogether destroyed my faith in him, in his judgment and in his appraisal of the Navy for war purposes. If only he could have been here this afternoon to hear the remarkable speeches of the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, and the noble and gallant Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Cork and Orrery, it might have given him cause to think, if anything could—though personally I doubt it. I have absolutely no confidence in him.

Look at what is happening with regard to the Navy. Look at the disposal of ships. Ships are built according to the Estimates for the Navy. Those Estimates are voted by Parliament. The extraordinary thing is that at some future date those ships are disposed of without Parliament having any sort of say whatever in the matter. I put a Question, which has been referred to this afternoon, on the subject of our aircraft carrier strength. The Minister of Defence, in his peculiar Statement on Defence, has indicated that the Navy is going to be organised as a series of task forces round a carrier. That will certainly lead to those ships being the main object of enemy attack. And if any one of them is sunk, what happens to the remainder of the task force?

It seems to me a very peculiar thing that at this moment, when we have only a very limited number of carriers, we should be contemplating disposing of no fewer than six. The First Lord has explained to us in this House that those six are weak, inefficient, in a bad state of repair and require a lot of money spent on them; and I have not the slightest doubt that we shall be told we have not got the crews to man them anyway—and probably that we have no aircraft for them. But if we lose our first-line strength we are driven back on our second line, and those ships are definitely our second line.

Another thing: as the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, has said this afternoon, in the last war we wanted escort carriers. Surely, having got these carriers, even if they are not all that is to be desired at the present moment, they are worth retaining until we are quite sure we can replace them by something better. It seems to me that those ships would make excellent escort carriers, if nothing better. It is very difficult to improvise an escort carrier; it takes a long time, and during that time heavy damage may be done by the enemy. If only we could be given a little more information ahead, so that we knew that the Admiralty were contemplating disposing of, shall we say, six carriers and a dozen destroyers ! We have disposed of destroyers which, as has been said by both the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, and the noble and gallant Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Cork and Orrery, would be invaluable in another war. Those destroyers have been handed over to all kinds of countries, Norway has had some; Sweden and India have had some—they have been scattered about all over the world. Our destroyer strength is hopelessly inadequate for the calls that might be made upon it. The Russians have a large number of really fast, up-to-date destroyers. They have thirty cruisers of the "Sverdlov" class and so on; and, I suppose, a very large number of aircraft.

It seems to me that the whole subject of Naval strength, which, as has been said this afternoon, is absolutely vital to this country, requires further consideration. But how to get that further consideration for it I do not know. We cannot blame the noble Earl who speaks for the Admiralty in this House: it is not his fault. The fault now lies with the right honourable gentleman the Minister of Defence who apparently has power to override the Naval Staff, perhaps the Army Command and the Higher Command of the Royal Air Force. Unfortunately we have agreed to have a Minister of Defence, and it is all working out exactly as I remember was foreseen in another place in the old days.

I then listened to and took part in many debates on the whole subject of a Ministry of Defence; and the danger that was always emphasised was that we should get a Minister of Defence with insufficient appreciation of the needs of the Services, with the result that one or more of the Services might suffer. I believe that the Navy has suffered tragically in what has gone on so far. I only hope that the noble Earl the First Lord will be able to reassure us this afternoon. He may tell me that I am just another alarmist. The fact is that I am alarmist; and I do not in the least mind being told that I am. I believe that the Navy is vital to this country—as vital to-day as it has been throughout all our history. If only we could get the Minister of Defence to study history a little more that might do some good.

6.35 p.m.

LORD SHEPHERD

My Lords, I hope the noble Earl the Minister, after listening to this debate in your Lordships' House this evening, will go back to his colleagues in the Cabinet determined to provide a Navy to meet the commitments of this country and the defence of its coast. I hope that he will have listened to and will take heed of the warning given by my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition. The reason why I am intervening in a naval debate is that a few weeks ago I was part of a N.A.T.O. Parliamentarian delegation which went to America to see the Strategic Air Command and also to visit Admiral Wright, the Commander in Chief of the N.A.T.O. Atlantic Forces.

I should like to take this opportunity of expressing publicly in your Lordships' House my thanks for the great kindness that this delegation received from Admiral Wright, his Staff Officers of the United States Navy and all the officers who represent the Navies of the N.A.T.O. forces. I will not say that Admiral Wright, in his full briefing to us, expressed views critical of Her Majesty's Government or of the N.A.T.O. countries; but I feel entitled to say that this delegation from Britain, which came from all the main Parties, came away with the impression that all was not well in the defence of the Atlantic.

Admiral Wright pointed out the vast area that he was called upon to defend—the whole of the West Coast of Europe down to Morocco, straight across to the East Coast of America, North to Greenland and then across to the Northern tip of Norway. This vast area is under his command and there was in our minds no doubt that the forces that were available to that command were completely and utterly inadequate. In fact, basically those force are provided by the United States. They are forces based on United States ports. If war should come, whatever may be the choice available to Admiral Wright, I believe that the Navy, which is basically American, will be used for the defence of the American East Coast. There will be few vessels available for the defence of the European coast and few forces available for convoying.

I should like to draw attention to that gap in the North Atlantic between the Faroes and Iceland. It is through that gap that the Russian submarines will come. I do not believe that any forces are available for that gap. This is a terrible position. It is bad enough to-day, but we are now to scrap ships of the Reserve. If war comes it will not be good intentions that will matter; it will not be prototypes, programmes and drawing boards. What will matter will be the forces we have available at the moment of attack—

THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY

Hear, hear¡

LORD SHEPHERD

My Lords, if we have not got those forces we are doomed. I do not want to turn this debate into a Party matter but I must say this: the whole of the defence policy of Her Majesty's Government is so retrograde and is so unrealistic in relation to the foreign policy which they adopt that, frankly, it "scares me stiff". We see the hand of the Treasury everywhere. We have troops in Jordan. We are calling upon the Americans to provide aircraft. What happens if we have to go to Persia? The Navy, as my noble Leader has said, will be called upon to support the forces. The Navy is ill-equipped; it has insufficient ships. My Lords, I earnestly ask the Minister to go back to his colleagues in the Cabinet and say that there must be a stop to this retrenchment; that we must have military, naval and air forces capable of meeting our obligations to the defence agreements that we have made, and defence forces that are capable of defending this country.

6.41 p.m.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE EARL OF SELKIRK)

My Lords, we have had a very moving and powerful speech from the noble and gallant Lord Cork and Orrery, as we have had also from the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, who speaks with such very real authority on this subject. Some of their remarks have perhaps wandered a little wide of the actual subject of the Motion. On that wider issue may I content myself by saying just this: I have no doubt that if at any time in this country we lose interest in that sea power on which our political position and our economic strength have been built, then something will happen which will affect all the inhabitants who live here. As Winston Churchill has said, in Britain, whatever our shortcomings, we understand the sea affair very thoroughly. If I may put it simply, as the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, said, the Navy is necessary; and it was never more so than to-day, particularly for the reason that it constitutes in a full sense a key point in the N.A.T.O. structure, to which the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, referred. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said that the hand of the Treasury is everywhere. Of course it is. Otherwise I should have no money at all. The Treasury must play its part in this.

What I should like to do is to concentrate my remarks a little more narrowly on the subject of this particular Motion and I should particularly like to deal with what I think is the main point of the debate, which was reiterated by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, when he asked: "Are you throwing away what you have got?" I think, in a word, that was the pith of the repeated remarks which were being made. Of course we are in the difficult position that we have a very wide choice of possibilities. We are in the danger of being accused either of preparing for the next war in terms of the last or, alternatively, of forgetting the lessons of the last war altogether. But what we really have to do is to bring our experience and equipment up to date; and, quite frankly, that is what we are trying to do. I do not think we can envisage exactly what sort of war we are going to have; nor do I think it is really practical politics, as the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, suggested, to try for a 100 per cent. insurance against all contingencies. I really do not think that that is right.

THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY

My Lords, I did not mean to suggest a 100 per cent. insurance. I said, "Let us keep what we have until we replace it by something better."

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

I thought that the noble Earl was suggesting that we should prepare in the Atlantic for all contingencies. That is a very big order. What I should like to emphasise is this. In this wide range of possibilities the Navy presents a natural flexibility which can meet a wide variety of circumstances, with substantially the same armament and equipment. That is the reason why one gets such excellent value for money from a Navy.

Our central policy is to prevent war from taking place. There is nothing new about that; we have always done so; but it involves perhaps rather a change of method. We do so by the united strength of ourselves and our Allies, and by the instant readiness of all forces for action. I do not mean simply nuclear power alone, but all forces of the Western World. It is for that reason that I want to emphasise the development of new construction, rather than the maintenance in various stages of obsolescence of our older ships. I noticed that the noble and gallant. Viscount, Lord Cunningham of Hyndhope, though he made a number of criticisms in the debate on the Navy Estimates, was quite clear in his remarks about the importance of the new construction programme of antisubmarine vessels. That is the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

I should like to explain how, within the resources which are available, we are carrying out that policy, but first may I say one word about what the reserves consist of? The noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, was Flag Officer commanding the Reserve Fleet, so perhaps I need not say it to him; but perhaps I may explain that I am not talking about reserves of men—although they are of great importance—many of whom serve in a volunteer capacity, but of ships. The Reserve Fleet consists of three parts. First, there is the Operational Reserve. This consists of ships which can put to sea, fully equipped and manned, within a very short period. It consists of a quite substantial force which would materially increase the number of escorts that we could make available.

The second part consists of the Supplementary Reserve. These ships are in good condition, but since they are "mothballed" they are at rather longer notice for service than the ships of the Operational Reserve. Together these two Reserves form, in destroyers and frigates, a force of about the same size as the seagoing Fleet. And I can tell the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, that we are not taking any ships out of "mothballs" to scrap them. We do not allow any ship to disappear from these maintained Reserves before its useful life has ended. The third class is the Extended Reserve. The only attraction of the Extended Reserve is that because the ships are unmaintained, they cost a comparatively small amount of money. But they are all ships of war-time design and construction and have not been modernised since then. The majority have not been refitted for four or five years, and in many cases even before that. They are lying unmaintained and therefore they deteriorate. What are these ships? They are cruisers which are from eighteen to twenty years old; destroyers which are from fourteen to seventeen years old; ocean minesweepers of wartime construction; and frigates mostly built between 1941 and 1944.

I now come to the aircraft carriers, which are really at the origin of this debate. All these were laid down either before or during the war. They simply cannot be modernised to bring them into step with the requirements of the aircraft we are using to-day. It is not even a question of money. Even if we cut them down to the waterline, they would still not be suitable. It has been suggested that even if these older carriers cannot carry modern aircraft they could carry anti-submarine helicopters for trade protection. Incidentally, in answer to the noble Viscount, I think that a submarine would not find a helicopter a very easy thing to deal with by surfacing and shooting at it. The helicopter will go much faster and can almost certainly discharge a homing torpedo while a submarine is coming to the surface.

The difficulty of providing carriers for this purpose, with the additional expense of providing helicopters, and keeping both at the right degree of readiness, is that it would cost a very great deal of money. But there is a further objection. We have to hold a reasonable balance between the naval-air side and conventional surface forces. I would ask noble Lords whether they would not prefer us, instead of having a rehabilitated carrier, equipped only with helicopters— that is, without fighters; without strike aircraft—to spend the same amount of money on modern anti-submarine frigates. That really is the question.

I should just like to say one word about frigates. A great deal of emphasis has been put on the importance of convoy work, and with this I entirely agree. It is, of course, quite right, and I am fully aware that many of these tasks will fall to the Royal Navy. I am aware that many noble Lords think that the United States Navy will remain on the Eastern seaboard, but I have no reason to think that this will be the case. We shall have to fulfil these duties along with our Allies.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

My Lords, I should like to recall to the noble Earl's mind the incidents in 1942. I know I am going back over the old war. We had fifty destroyers from the United States, and when the United States came into the war, forced in by the experiences in Hawaii, they had such a submarine attack on their East coast that, with all the ships they had available in different parts of the world, they still had to come to us for assistance, and we could send only oceangoing trawlers and the like. They lost a million tons of shipping in a week on the East coast of America. I think as a minimum, we ought to be able to stand on our own.

LORD SHEPHERD

My Lords, may I just amplify what I said about defending the East coast of America? The great fear in America is of missile submarines with nuclear warheads attacking their East coast. That is their great fear.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

I am aware of that and quite appreciate it, but the point I was going to make was that we are very much better in the modern circumstances, having modern equipment, with the more advanced type of antisubmarine weapons and radar, than we should be in bringing up these older ships. I should much rather concentrate on the modern ships than I should on the older ships. May I give just one or two examples of what is involved? Naval frigates vary a great deal, but I should like to give you one example. Take the example of a "Castle" or a "Bay" class frigate. It would cost several hundreds of thousands of pounds and would take many months' of work to bring it to its original condition; that is, the condition it was in when it was built somewhere in the early 'forties. But even then its speed would be quite inadequate to cope with any modern submarine. That is the difference between the position in 1941, when we had these American "Town" class destroyers, which I concede were very useful indeed.

There is another point, and that is that these American "Town" class destroyers were maintained by the Americans right up to the time when they were handed over. They went to sea, I say with great respect, within a week or so of being handed over, and that is the big difference. What I am talking of now is the unmaintained reserve, and, quite frankly, we simply have not the money at the present time to maintain this extended reserve. I cannot pretend that we have. If we do not maintain it, I am afraid I do not think there is a great deal of point of keeping it indefinitely.

Between the wars, submarines made comparatively little progress, but to-day there has been a tremendous advance in submarine development and in the speed at which they can work. The frigates of the last war would be practically useless against them. What I have to face is that I know that submarine development is going on further still. It is not going to stop where it is now. What are required are frigates with a speed of some 26 knots. The war-time frigates would really not meet the job of anti-submarine chasing at the present time.

I accept that we could spend money. We could modernise these war-time frigates. We could spend, perhaps, £1½ million to £2 million over two years, and we could bring them up to a modern standard with the whole range of Asdic, anti-submarine weapons, radar and wireless. But once you have done that, if you compare that with a new Type 14 frigate, costing £1½ million and taking 2½ years to build, there really is not any advantage in doing it. And, of course, with a new ship you would get a better hull than the five or ten-year-old hull which you would get with a modernised old frigate. You would have a 20-year life. I must say that the noble and gallant Admiral of the Fleet makes me wonder when he says that he does not know why hulls have only a twenty-year life. His long experience, I am sure, would make him think that that is quite inadequate and that they should be given a much longer period.

I have to put the question quite frankly: how far is it worth while maintaining ships in reserve which would be called into use only at such high cost and after such an extended length of time? Are we likely in any future global war to have enough time to use ships which would take months to bring forward? I must say that I have considerable doubts on that, and I think it is better to concentrate on instant readiness rather than on diverting our resources to a reserve which we should probably never use. I would go further. I would go so far as to say that ideally we should have no reserve at all. All the ships should be manned and ready for service at the proper time.

There have been suggestions made at some time that we should disperse these ships around the Commonwealth, and particularly to such places as Australia and Canada, but the moment the details of this plan come to be examined it presents considerable difficulties. I have no reason to suppose that the Commonwealth countries have any money to spend on these ships. They would prefer, I believe, to spend their money on new sea-going fleets. If they were modern ships, of course it would be quite different.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

My Lords, I should like to apologise to the First Lord because I have to leave, but may I say that the arguments that he is using (and I think very fairly using) about costs and the possibilities of new developments are exactly the arguments I had to meet from the Treasury in 1929–31. If we had given way to all their arguments and not kept the reserves we did, we should certainly have lost the first twelve months of the war. I ask him to keep that in mind.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

I do not believe to-day that these old destroyers of war-time construction would really be of any use, whereas I think the ships which had been maintained from the First World War were of some use because of the limited development in submarine construction.

I would only go on to say this: that we could, of course, at great expense bring these older ships forward to current use, but what I am concerned with is what the position is going to be perhaps seven to ten years hence. I am sure we are wise to keep our eye not on ships which would not even meet the current situation but on those which will meet our requirements in the years to come, and it is for that reason that I should like to concentrate attention on our building programme. Before doing so, however, I should like to ask this question: am I right in thinking that the noble Earl would rather concentrate on new equipment than on spending a lot of money on bringing older equipment to a more modern condition? I imagine he would say "Yes" to that question.

THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY

My Lords, may I answer that question? As circumstances exist, nobody could say at the present time that we are safe from a sudden declaration of war. Nations snarl at each other like a lot of dogs, and a declaration of war may come at any time. I should much rather see ships ready to act instantly than in seven years' time, when we might be a Russian colony.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

I have tried to explain that these ships are not ready for instant action and that they could not be put into use for a period of one or two years. If I may, I would repeat the words which I have already used: we are scrapping no ships which have a useful life still left in them. We are not scrapping any ships of that sort. Those are not the ships to which I have referred. What I am saying is that in so far as we have resources, I am sure we are right in concentrating them on modern equipment.

Now, if the noble Earl wants defence expenditure to rise substantially, as I think he probably does, that is another matter. I am only considering to-day how I use the resources which Parliament is able to put at my disposal. That is where I think I can tell a not altogether discouraging story. We have coming into the Fleet in the next two years two aircraft carriers, two cruisers, thirteen destroyers and frigates, sixteen minesweepers and seventeen miscellaneous craft and a number of submarines. As the noble Earl is probably aware, the first post-war submarine, the "Porpoise", is now in the Pool of London. All these will come into service as either new or completely modernised ships. I am sure that this is the right policy, and I believe that the noble Earl will not disagree with me.

I believe that the correct emphasis is on a seagoing Fleet rather than on the Reserve Fleet, though I do not underestimate the importance of the Operational Reserve, to which I have referred. But I do not think that we should concentrate on a large Reserve Fleet. The immediate readiness and flexibility of a seagoing Navy, maintained on a world basis, from the West Indies to Hong Kong, and from the South Atlantic to the Firth of Forth, is of far greater value than keeping ships which can be used only after a considerable length of time. Moreover, I do not think it is worth keeping the highly trained personnel we have in present circumstances except with the best equipment. Though the amount of equipment may seem scarce compared with what we want, I can assure your Lordships that the Fleet is maintained at a very high order. Although I can understand the emphasis which the noble Earl has put on the Reserve Fleet, and while I appreciate very much his reasons, it is not the emphasis which I think should be accepted to-day. In placing our emphasis on a seagoing Fleet and on the Operational Reserve we are acting fully in line with our N.A.T.O. Allies. I do not think that they would be in the least interested in an Extended Reserve Fleet which could not be used quickly. That is the emphasis which Admiral Wright put on the matter.

What I am concerned with is what we want to have in ten years' time. With respect to the noble and gallant Earl, it is no good thinking only of today. I do not think that the immediate danger of a major conflict is great, but I am not prepared to say what the position may be in five, six or more years' time. Before the 1914–18 war it was clear that supremacy at sea would rest on Dreadnoughts. During the period 1918 to 1939 it was equally clear that the aircraft carrier would be the key to naval strength. But what are we going to forecast for today? I do not pretend that I can give the answer, but what I can say is that I have set up with the highest authority and best advice I can get a Fleet Requirements Committee, under the Deputy-Chief of Naval Staff, to look into this problem, to see what kind of ship we should look for in ten years' time. So far, the Committee have confirmed the correctness of the decisions already made.

We are building a Fleet with modernised aircraft carriers with the latest aircraft, guided missile destroyers with a new form of anti-aircraft defence, general purpose frigates, embodying all the lessons we have learned on frigate design and incorporating new types of asdic and radar which we believe to be the best in the world, and, most important of all, nuclear-propelled submarines. The decision to buy an American reactor for the "Dreadnought" will, we hope, accelerate its introduction into the Royal Navy by at least two years. These are the things on which I think we ought to spend money, not on obsolete ships. I believe that that is right and I believe your Lordships will agree, when you see the position, that that is a wise decision to take at the present time. I do not think that the noble and gallant Earl is wise in putting too much emphasis on an Extended Reserve. In view of what I have said I hope that the noble and gallant Earl will not feel inclined to press his Motion.

7.4 p.m.

THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY

My Lords, the noble Earl has answered with such a flood of speech that I hardly know where to get in on it. But the terms of my Motion, as I said at the beginning, are limited to the present time; and the present time I consider is until this present crisis is over and there is some settlement between the powers. Until that situation arises, I feel that we are living in a dangerous atmosphere and that we ought to keep what we have until we get something better with which to replace them. If a man has one pair of trousers and they wear out, he cannot throw them away until he gets another pair. I am all for the kind of Navy the noble Earl said we should have in ten years' time. Thank God, I shall be dead by then ! It is an adequate Navy for the present that I am trying to urge. If we have our food supply stopped, as we might well have from the number of ships we have now, what will be the result? The whole country is going to be roused. The people will not be able to get food and there will be riots, revolutions and abject "Red terror." We must have a number of small ships and the Air Force to keep the submarines under at the present time—I am not talking about ten years ahead.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

My Lords, can I give this assurance to the noble and gallant Earl. No ship which could be brought forward for service within a matter of months will be destroyed.

THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY

My Lords, it is late and I am not proposing to divide the House, but I should like the noble Earl to give this message from me to the members of the Government. It is not original. It is what Tennyson wrote in 1886, when there was a naval crisis: You, you who have the ordering of our Fleet, If you should only compass our disgrace, When all men starve, The wild mob's million feet, Will kick you from your place. But then, too late, too late ! I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.