§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what is to be the tonnage, when complete, of the two cruisers to be ordered or laid down before the end of the present financial year to complete the current shipbuilding programme; and whether there has been any departure with regard to the size of these ships from those proposed in the naval compromise programme agreed upon in 1925?
§ Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what is to be the 562W tonnage of the two cruisers of the 1928 programme to be laid down at Devon-port and Portsmouth respectively?
§ Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAMAs has been already announced, certain changes were decided upon with regard to the cruiser programme laid down in the 1925 White Paper (Cmd. 2476). These changes affected the years 1927 and 1928. Two cruisers were dropped from the former year and one from the latter. When it was thought that there was still a hope of international agreement along the lines we proposed at Geneva in 1927 the 10,000-ton cruiser in the 1927 programme was cut out and also for reasons of economy one of the two 8,000-ton cruisers. In 1928, when it became clear that agreement on a maximum of 13 10,000-ton cruisers was not attainable, it was decided to proceed with the 10,000-ton cruiser deferred from 1927 and with the similar cruiser in the 1928 programme, the two 8,000-ton cruisers in the latter programme being cut out. As already stated, the decision included deferring commencement of the ships till the end of the financial year.