§ Mr. Timothy Smithasked the Secretary of State for Defence what will be the strength of the Royal Navy in 1985 as compared with the figures given in annex C to Volume I of the "Statement on the Defence Estimates 1982"—Cmnd. 8529–1.
§ Mr. BlakerAnnex C to Volume I of the "Statement on the Defence Estimates 1982" shows the strength of the Royal Navy as at 1 April 1982. Since then we have lost Her Majesty's Ships "Sheffield", "Coventry", "Antelope" 451W and "Ardent". It is not the practice to give precise details of the strength of the Fleet beyond the current financial year but I can say that we expect the size of the nuclear powered submarine flotilla to continue increasing towards the target of 17 by the end of the decade. For the destroyer/frigate force, we have announced a target of about 50—of which up to eight will be in the standby squadron—but the precise number in any one year will be affected by a number of factors including the time scale for replacing the vessels lost.