§ Lieut.-Commander FLETCHERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the effective life of cruisers, destroyers, and submarines is still assessed at 20, 16 and 12 years, respectively; and, if not, what are the accepted figures for these categories of ships and for capital ships?
§ Sir S. HOAREI would draw the hon. Member's attention to Article 1 (c) of the London Naval Treaty, 1936, wherein the ages at which the various categories of warship are deemed to become "over age" are specified. At the same time I would point out that the object of defining these ages in the Treaty was merely to provide an agreed statistical basis for comparing the strengths of navies. Naturally the effective life of any particular ship depends on a number of material factors on which it would be unsafe to generalise.