§ Mr. Bill WalkerTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what progress has been made on developing plans for the rationalisation of the Royal Navy's support infrastructure.
§ Mr. Tom KingThe Government have been examining all aspects of the armed forces' support, in order to achieve the most efficient support infrastructure and to make savings in line with the front-line force level reductions confirmed in the Statement on the Defence Estimates "Britain's Defence for the 90s". The closure of the RN leadership school, HMS Royal Arthur, the RN diesel repair depot at Blackbrook Farm, and the accommodation and administrative headquarters, HMS St. Vincent, at Furse house, London, have already been announced,Official Report, 16 January 1991, column 500.
149WFollowing a thorough review of basing arrangements, I have decided that when the new force structure is in place ships of the Royal Navy will continue to be based at each of the naval bases at Portsmouth, Devonport, Rosyth and Faslane. Although Portland is not a base port but an operating base, I see a continuing need for a naval presence there also. We will now proceed to rationalise the support activities in each of these naval base areas, and changes will also be made to the current arrangements for basing ships at Rosyth.
The Rosyth-based squadron of four type 42 destroyers —HMS York, Glasgow, Liverpool and Edinburgh—will be redeployed to Portsmouth, which will become their base port. This will allow the support activity for type 42s to be concentrated in Portsmouth with consequent economies. This move to Portsmouth will take place progressively from mid-1993 to late-1994. In addition, the four ships of the Northern Ireland squadron will move to Faslane in 1993. Rosyth remains the base port for the 1st, 3rd and 4th minecounter measure squadrons together with the fishery protection squadron. As a result of these changes, about 1,100 service personnel will relocate to Portsmouth and 100 to Faslane. Some 900 civilian posts will also be affected with a number moving to other establishments, but also with some inevitable redundancies. Employment at Rosyth will then number around 8,500 including employees at the dockyard. Current plans to conduct major refits of submarines, including Vanguard class SSBNs, and surface vessels, at Rosyth remain unchanged. The substantial investment currently being made in the dockyard in new refit facilities for Trident submarines will itself provide a further significant number of jobs.
A range of other measures designed to rationalise support facilities elsewhere in the naval shore infrastructure have also been decided. These include the closure of the royal naval air station HMS Daedalus at Lee-on-Solent and the relocation of the air engineering school and other units to other establishments in the Portsmouth area; the closure of the royal naval stores depots at Lathalmond in Scotland and Copenacre in Wiltshire, although some offices will remain in Copenacre, the closure of the royal naval armaments depot at Trecwn in Wales and the partial closure of the armament depot at Ernesettle, Plymouth; closure of the oil fuel depot at Invergordon and withdrawal of Royal Navy facilities at the Finnart oil fuel depot; and the sale of the Gunwharf site at HMS Nelson, Portsmouth. Some 1,900 civilian posts will be affected with some inevitable redundancies, but it is hoped about a third will be relocated to other establishment. These closures will take place progressively over the next five years.
These measures carry forward the policy already announced of making reductions in the support area proportional to those in the front line. They are an essential part of ensuring the best use of defence resources and providing a structure appropriate to the needs of our Navy in the 90s and beyond.