§ Mr. Neville Trotterasked the Secretary of State for Defence what is the current cost on an annual basis of maintaining in the Standby squadron the cruiser and seven frigates which are now to be sold or scrapped; when these ships entered the Standby squadron; and what sum has been spent on mothballing them.
§ Mr. SpeedThe current estimated cost on an annual basis of maintaining the cruiser and seven frigates would have been about £3 million. Dates of arrival at Chatham to join the Standby Squadron are as follows: HMS "Lynx" 1976, HM Ships "Mohawk", "Zulu" and "Nubian" 1979, HM Ships "Blake", "Gurkha", "Tartar" and "Eskimo" 1980. About £0.3 million has been spent on preservation equipment, much of which is re-usable.