HC Deb 30 January 1970 vol 794 c406W
Dame Joan Vickers

asked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he will allocate to Her Majesty's Dockyard Devonport the building of a ship for the use of the Royal Navy in the near future.

Dr. David Owen

The construction of a research and development vessel for use as a transducer calibration facility—RDV 01—will commence at Devonport in March, 1970, and will be on the slipway for about a year. Devonport will also construct a number of dumb craft for the Port Auxiliary Service. The possibility of further construction work for the Dockyard will be then reviewed in 1971, by which time it should be possible to judge the effects of measures being taken to improve the Dockyards productivity and to reduce their overheads.