The Secretary of State for Defence has declined to discuss reported ballistic shelters at Faslane in open session, telling the Defence Committee there is a difference between what others report and what the department is willing to say.
Wes Streeting was giving evidence to the committee on the work of his department.
Michelle Scrogham, the Labour member for Barrow and Furness, raised air and missile defence, noting the committee had heard that covering what is needed would cost a billion pounds per city. She said: “I am interested to hear it reported that Faslane is getting ballistic shelters. Are you looking at rolling that out in other areas?”
Streeting said: “There is a danger of my being dragged into a level of operational security detail that I would not want to share in this format.”
Scrogham replied: “It is public knowledge. It is in the UK Defence Journal.”
Streeting said: “There is a difference between what others report and what we are willing to say. Given the spirit in which we engage with this Committee, first, I would always be happy to try to share with the Committee in a closed format as much as we can of that which we would not want to share in an open session. Given your constituency interest in this, I can reassure you that the security of our nuclear deterrent and the enterprise that underpins it is obviously of the highest importance to us. I would be very happy to make sure that we properly brief you as the Member of Parliament for Barrow.”
Faslane on the Clyde is the base for the Vanguard class ballistic missile submarines that carry the continuous at-sea deterrent, and for the Astute class attack submarines. Coulport, a few miles away, stores and loads the warheads. Barrow-in-Furness, which Scrogham represents, is where the submarines are built by BAE Systems.
Earlier in the same exchange Streeting addressed homeland air defence more generally, saying the government is putting £790 million into integrated air and missile defence to modernise older systems and that a layered approach is needed. He noted that Luke Pollard had described the idea of an iron dome for Britain as an iron sieve.
Ministers confirmed in Parliament this month that a future requirement for hardened aircraft shelters across Royal Air Force bases in the United Kingdom has been identified, and that hardened shelters may form part of future infrastructure considerations at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
The Defence Committee reported this week that Russian submarine and sabotage forces in the High North pose direct risks to the North Atlantic and to Britain, including to the nuclear deterrent, and that failure to deter Russia from underwater threats puts subsea data cables and energy pipelines in British waters at particular risk.
