AIRCRAFT AND MAINTENANCE CARRIERS (Hansard, 25 June 1958)

§ EARL HOWE
My Lords, I beg to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE EARL OF SELKIRK)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for providing the opportunity for me to dispel any doubts which may remain following upon our debate on the Navy Estimates. The carriers "Unicorn", "Perseus", "Theseus", "Ocean" and "Glory" were laid down before or during the war and have not subsequently been 181 brought up to date to meet modern requirements. They are now surplus to the requirements of the Royal Navy, and if they cannot otherwise be disposed of, they will be scrapped. The "Warrior" has been partially modernised and was in service up to December last. We are willing to sell her, as she is surplus to our immediate requirements, and she is remaining in reserve for the time being.
Your Lordships will recall that during the course of our debate on the Navy Estimates I explained in general terms the decision to reduce the size of the Reserve Fleet. I did not enumerate the ships affected because I was under the impression that this information had become generally known through my last two Explanatory Statements on the Navy Estimates and through replies to questions in Parliament.
The reasons I gave for the reduction in the Reserve Fleet were, briefly, that these ships and their equipment would be very expensive to modernise, and that the large sums of money needed to maintain ships in reserve at the requisite degree of readiness is better spent on keeping more ships in the Active Fleet. These factors apply with special force to aircraft carriers, which are useless if they cannot keep pace with the rapid developments in the aircraft. We have not overlooked the advantages of keeping one or two carriers for the transport rôole, but it is expensive in money and manpower to maintain them in reserve as such. I can assure the noble Earl that this question will not in any way be prejudiced by the proposal to scrap the ships that I have mentioned above.

§ EARL HOWE
My Lords while thanking the noble Earl for his comprehensive Answer, may I ask him whether I am not right in thinking that H.M.S. "Warrior" has been twice refitted in recent years and presumably, therefore, may be considered to be an efficient unit of the Fleet? Might I also ask whether, as we have no further aircraft carriers building, it might not be a good thing to retain H.M.S. "Warrior," at least for a period, to see what we can do about it, as without that carrier our aircraft carrier strength is very small?

§ LORD LAWSON
Before the noble Earl answers, may I ask him, in regard to H.M.S. "Warrior," whether it is not a 182 dangerous practice to sell to our enemies a ship of this description, which may some day be turned against us?

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
My Lords, I am afraid that I have not the details of recent refits of H.M.S. "Warrior," but she was in good condition last December. The real point is that she is not fully modernised and a great deal of money would be required to bring her up to the point where she could be of real value to modern aircraft. We are, of course, building the carrier "Hermes" and she will be a very fine carrier. En reply to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, I would say that he is perfectly right. We exercise very great care in disposing of ships overseas and it is normal to inform Parliament when we do so. I can assure noble Lords that these sales are made only in cases where we are quite certain that they are desirable.

§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER of HILLSBOROUGH
My Lords, may I ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, first, whether he is aware that he has brought more doleful news to the House of Lords today? We had understood, in the debate on the Navy Estimates and from the White Paper, that carriers were now to be the core of the Royal Navy. Will the noble Earl first tell us whether the "Leviathan" is to be completed as well as the Hermes"? And will he give us the dates of the first commissioning of most of these ships, which were in my own programme during the war? They are modern in design and well capable of conversion for effective task force service with far less expenditure than would be involved in building another six or seven carriers; and without them we shall still be ineffectively armed.

THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY
My Lords, before the noble Earl the First Lord answers, may I ask whether, before it was decided to scrap these carriers for the presentߞI believe the words used by the first Lord were that they were useless at the present momentߞit was known to be a fact that these ships could not be used for convoys. Is it very much good keeping two ships for convoys if we cannot get six for convoys? When this decision was taken, was consideration given to what might be the future loss owing to lack of protection which these ships could 183 give, not only to the passengers and crews of ships, but to the ships themselves, and to cargoes of oil, raw materials and food? Is this not an extraordinarily bad time, when we live under the threat of war, drastically to reduce the protection of convoys?

§ LORD SHEPHERD
My Lords, may I ask a further question? The noble Earl has stated that these ships were surplus to our requirements. Is he aware that the Supreme Allied Commander of N.A.T.O. recently stated that he was extremely concerned about the inadequacy of ships in the Western Atlantic to deal with convoys and submarines?

§ THE EARL, OF SELKIRK
My Lords I am afraid that I cannot tell the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, the dates when these ships were first commissioned. I imagine that some of them go back to 1944, 1945 and 1946. But as the noble Viscount is well aware, the development in carriers since that date has been of a remarkable character, so that ships built then are now completely out of date. The nature of the modernisation necessary to enable these ships to be used as carriers to-day would be very expensiveߞthe cost would run into millions. That is really the answer also to the noble and gallant Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery; but I feel it right that I should explain that we would rather spend the money available on new ships and new equipment, and we do not want to spend more than is absolutely essential on either the extended or the less extended Reserve. We feel that it would be wrong to do so.
We have therefore decidedߞand I believe this is right—to spend what resources we have on modern ships and modern equipment. For this reason we are not proposing at the present time to complete H.M.S. "Leviathan." I believe that that is also the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. We have to keep ships which are ready and immediately available in the Active Fleet. If these ships were retained in the extended Reserve, it would be months before they could be brought out in emergency. It is not felt that that is at all a valuable way of expending our resources at the present time. It is better to have a fully-equipped carrier 184 which we can use quickly, rather than carriers which can be used only after a period of months, and possibly years.

§ EARL HOWE
My Lords, probably the noble Earl, during his period of office, has authorised the spending of a lot of money in refitting H.M.S. "Warrior," for I know that she has been refitted twice. Surely that ship must be capable of further service. If she were not, it would not be an economic proposition to try to sell her to somebody else. Surely if we are not going to complete the "Leviathan" it is better to have a carrier like the "Warrior," which could be of service to the Fleet, rather than nothing at all—which is what the noble Earl's answer amounts to.

THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY
My Lords might I add this? The noble Earl the First Lord says that he has the ships which are required and essential; but he has not. I very much doubt whether the opinion of the Admiralty, if it were known, is that we have the ships which are essential. But, as was mentioned from the Opposition Benches, we have evidence—we have been told by responsible officers, by American Admirals and by our ownߞthat we have not got the ships. As for replacing them with the money available, there is no sign yet of a nuclear Navy. Surely it is better to keep what we have and can make use of, rather than to have nothing at all.

LORD GIFFORD
My Lords, may I say this—

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME)
My Lords, if my noble friend does not mind my saying so, it is not a question of saying: this is Question time, and we must not turn it into a debate.

LORD GIFFORD
My Lords, then may I ask this question? Although these ships that have been mentioned may in their present state be quite unsuitable for use as Fleet carriers, might it not be possible to bring them quickly to such a state of readiness that they would be most useful as escort carriers for escorting convoys across the Atlantic and elsewhere?

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
My Lords, I do not think that that is correct. I 185 think that an escort carrier to-day would require, with modern aircraft, pretty advanced equipment in the carrier itself. The noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, would, I gather, like a full debate on the subject—

THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY
Very much.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
ߞand there is no reason at all why he should not put down a Motion to discuss it. But he has raised a big question, which was dealt with in the course of the debate on the Navy Estimates which we had recently. I really do not think that I can satisfy him this afternoon, and it would need a great deal more time to explain all that is involved. The question is, is he prepared or does the country want to spend very much larger sums of money on defence than at the present time? If the noble Lords opposite will say that they do, then I will bear the point in mind. As I am placed, I must say that I ant convinced that the right thing is to spend our resources on first-class modern equipment and not on keeping vast quantities in reserve.

§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH
My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that that statement is capable of being dealt with only in a debateߞand we should be quite willing to deal with it in a debate? What I am concerned about is this: is no Government in this country going to learn in time that we should have lost the last war in the first two years of the war if we had not had a substantial Reserve Fleet which had been maintained? Even then we had quickly to give a ninety-nine years' lease on our valuable possessions in the West Indies in order to get fifty old destroyers to try to meet the situation. Will the Government never learn?

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
My Lords, I am aware of what the noble Viscount has said, and I would say only this to him. There are two accusations that are always made against the Defence Departments. One is that they are fighting a future war in terms of the last war, and the other is that they are trying to fight a future war without regard to the past. They are the two observations that are always thrown at one, and the only thing to do is to try to take a lesson from both, and that is what we are proposing to do.

§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH
Is it proposed to scrap all the work that has been done on the "Leviathan"?

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
No; the "Leviathan" is there. The noble Viscount may be aware that the Indian Navy has taken over the "Hercules", which is a similar ship, and she is now being completed by the Indian Navy.