§ Mr. Trotterasked the Secretary of State for Defence how many (a) aircraft carriers and (b) cruisers are included in the subgroups of that nomenclature under Navy general purpose combat forces on pages 72 and 73 of Command Paper No. 6735; what is the total tonnage of the ships in each sub-group; and why the cost of the cruisers is £63 million while that for the carriers is only £15 million when their total crews are shown as 1,400 and 1,700. respectively.
§ Mr. Duffy(a) One aircraft carrier and (b) two cruisers. The total tonnage of the ships is 50,000 and 25,000 respectively. As stated in paragraph 304(b) of Command Paper No. 6735, two new anti-submarine cruisers are under construction and their capital costs in 1977–78 are included in the £63 million. They do not yet, of course, have crews.