§ Lord Burlisonasked Her Majesty's Government:
What plans they have for the repair of HMS "Nottingham". [HL371]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach)When the destroyer HMS "Nottingham" grounded in Australian waters on 7 July 2002 she sustained severe damage and flooding in the forward part of the ship. She is now on passage to the UK on a heavy lift ship and is expected to arrive in United Kingdom waters on 7 December. She will then be unloaded and towed into HM naval base at Portsmouth where a contract has been placed for her repair with Fleet Support Limited. The repair work—which will cost around £26 million, including all materials supplied by the department—is expected to last up to 18 months. HMS "Nottingham" is expected to return to operational service in November 2004.
HMS "Nottingham" is a highly capable Type 42 destroyer designed to provide area air defence either independently or as an integral component of larger joint or coalition maritime task groups. Her key weapons, sensors and command system were significantly ungraded during an extensive refit in 97WA 1999–2000. These improvements will enable the ship to keep pace with the increasing demands of maritime air defence during the next 10 years and will aid interoperability with key allies, in particular the USA. HMS "Nottingham's" contribution will be crucial to bridging the air defence gap during the drawdown in Sea Harrier air defence aircraft beginning in 2005 and the introducton of the Type 45 destroyer from 2007.
To ease the short-term programming gap in the fleet created by HMS "Nottingham's" unavailability, HMS "Glasgow'', an older and less capable Type 42, is being regenerated from a planned state of lower readiness. An alternative solution which would have given HMS "Glasgow" a similar capability upgrade to that received by HMS "Nottingham" was deemed to provide best value for money.