Government intending to ‘grow Destroyer and Frigate force by 2030’

Nonsense Lee. He is admittedly breaking convention but Boris who is elected owns the responsibility. It’s the people behind the scenes who do the work. The politicians take the credit or get it in the neck. Sometimes we need some new ideas lets wait and see what they are and then judge.

Yes, I absolutely agree with that sentiment. Exceeding his status by some margin….time Boris told him to shut up!

Hi Lee1,

For those who do not have FT access here is a report on Reddit;

https://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/new-engines-for-the-royal-navys-type-23-frigates/

It does appear that Dominic Cummings as potential links with Russian intelligence although they are second or third hand. Of course, this is only what is in the public domain, but the article also suggests that some sensitive stuff is kept away from him. From that I would infer that either he has not gone through appropriate additional vetting or he has and risks have been identified limiting his access.

Interesting to say the least. Surprised that some hack has not followed this up as you would expect the slightest wiff of scandle would start a feeding frenzy in certain quarters of our press.

Sorry wrong link DOH!

https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/dr0ocp/labour_asks_about_dominic_cummings_years_working/

Walk softly but carry a big stick.

Lee/Artist – Can we agree that the NHS should work properly, there should be properly funded care for the elderly, we should adequately defend the country and it shouldn’t bankrupt the country. Not sure what the exact cost would be but provided they are all run efficiently it is possible and we should perhaps strive for that.

I agree NHS should be run properly, its ok to say defence should not waist money but if you were to point to poor health service management and waist you be proverbially shot!

Consider me dead. Don’t get me wrong I’m a great believer in the NHS I just think it could be better and I think most of the staff think that too. In fact I’m having difficulty thinking of anyone who doesn’t think that.

The NHS is being asked to do a lot of stuff it wasn’t set up for. I’m not going to take a side but things like fertility treatment, cosmetic surgery and gender reassignment were not what the NHS was for.

Just thought I’d toss it in to the debate, like I say, I’ll not be taking a side on the rights or wrongs of it.

(Need a stirring emoji)

lol. We have gone off topic a little. Suffice it to say you have to draw a line at some point. Personally I would like to see the NHS doing the major stuff well and the less important stuff not at all than attempt to do everything badly. That philosophy carries through to defence.

yes it was for all those things – just not at the beginning

Lee whilst I don’t agree with TAFKALPC comment I do believe many of us are breaking our social contract when it comes to health. I’d included myself in that as I should exercise more a shed a few pounds and eat better. Diseases brought about through bad life style choices are on the increase and we all feel we have the right to be fixed by the NHS, that’s a cost that could be avoided. Something 4 million people have diabetes mostly preventable type 2 and we spend a staggering 25k minute on treating it!!! . There’s people in our society that we born with conditions that they had no control over, there’s those who have no fault accidents with life changing conditions and then those who just need old age care. Yes we can tax more to pay for the care, operations and drugs for those preventable diseases but is that right? There’s probably a limit of tax that can be raised or the cuts we can make and at that point it’s those would had no choice in their condition that will suffer. We have an obligation to those who are less fortunate in out society to look after ourselves and not place unnecessary strain on the NHS and allow those who need it most to get the what they need from it. Sadly most of use don’t get it… right salad for dinner then a walk after that rant 🙂

Absolutely. I totally agree. However that is not all people. there are many people that are ill for reasons not to do with their lifestyle or are simply too poor to eat properly. Mental health is another issue. It is poorly handled and underfunded. Schools are also vastly underfunded. I am a school governor of a school and we just can not afford to hire the teachers we need or provide all the equipment we need. The school does its best with what it has but it is not enough. Now I would love to see money thrown at schools, the health services as well has the military (Given that I have been in the forces myself). However there just is not the money available and anyone who thinks there is just is not being realistic. We also have the single biggest threat we have ever faced in the form of Climate change and we need to pour billions into that too if we are to have any reasonable effect. Now I do think we need some more ships but what do we get rid of in order to purchase them?

The other issue is waste. Now that should be able to be fixed and perhaps it will be. However there are also many party donors that benefit from overspend in these areas and the Government is likely to want to keep them sweet.

I think we both agree waste is a major issue. Not convinced the being poorer is a direct contributor to diet, my family were poor, but the Sunday lunch left overs provided lunch for 2-3 days after, the bones were cooked up and cheap veggies added to make a healthy broth, couple of slices of bread and it was a good lunch. That’s just one example but people wasted less back then. Even now I have stock from the Christmas Turkey frozen to make soup :). My Nephew complains he’s never got no money but buy takeaways most nights, I often point out that if he made his own food he’d save money and eat healthier, I’ve actually gone through worked examples costing out dishes and its always cheaper than take away food and other bad food choices. But if we always tell people their wage and diet are linked we give people an out imo, people can shrug and say oh well its actually a government problem. Diabetes itself is recognised as a crisis and that’s why there’s now sugar taxes, bans on fast food delivery to schools etc. Interestingly whilst there’s been a doubling of people with diabetes in the past 20 years poverty has not changed much the graph are relatively flat.

My opinion on the UK on funding of services is for too long we have grown the economy by adding people, yes GDP grows, tax revenue grows but so does the need to provide services. If you grow productivity you add GDP, you add tax revenue but you don’t need more people. You have more money to spend on the same number of people which means a better quality of services for us all, and with that a better equipped armed forces.

Rather than seeing what los pollos directly said and reacting, it’s rather easy to see his meaning that the so called “poor”with today’s living standards far outstrip previous generations level of poverty. You say food banks, yes they exist and are used but it’s a fact that if something is there, and you want to use it, then you will make sure you qualify. The vast majority of people have to live within their means, and chicken was saying that the modern safety net of the welfare state is mostly effective and in most cases ensure those people using it can have the latest I phone etc.

The NHS is amazing but massively mis-managed and pisses money away 24/7! All Government organizations can be made to save money with proper reorganization. The NHS is currently not fit for purpose for the 21st century and it will take a serious set of bollocks by whatever government to sort it out. People need to stop using the NHS as a political brickbat and come together to see what is the best way forward!

As for Defence, again the MOD is also massively wasteful, but that is more to do with politicians kicking various expensive projects down the road for short term gains, which obviously incur longer term costs. My current employer, in the private sector, is much better with money because it’s their money/margins/profits, not a pool of tax payers cash to piss away! If you don’t measure up, you get put on a flight and fucked off back to blighty contract closed. Cheers.

It is easy to look at people that claim they are poor and yet sit there watching TV all day. However my wife as a teacher in a very deprived area of the UK sees the real poor, the ones that are not shown on TV entertainment shows. The ones that are working 3 or 4 jobs and still barely have enough to feed themselves after they have fed their children. The ones that are screwed by every section of society. She has children that have no shoes and sometimes can not get to school at all because they have had to stay overnight at shelters that are too far away due to not enough shelter places being available nearby. I myself had to move with my mother into some pretty terrible accommodation when I was younger, surrounded by drug dealers, drug addicts, cars burning outside on a nightly basis… She managed to get us out of that situation but that was because she already had okay job as we did start off in the bad situation.

Then you have the homeless. Some are wasters that have put themselves in the situation and spend it drinking. However I speak to a guy regularly that has non of that background. He had a ton of poor luck all at once which led to him loosing his job, his wife leaving him no family to support him. As an adult male he is last on the list for any help. He stays in a tent down the road, kids stand on the roofs nearby and throw bricks on him at night. He has tried the shelters but he feels safer having bricks thrown at him than he does in a bed next to unstable, drunk, drugged up blokes stealing what little he has and beating him up if he challenges them. There is virtually no help available for him as the services are stretched to their limits. Morrisons did used to let him use their facilities on evenings and let him sit for an hour or so in their store in the warm. However Morrisons recently closed…

There are areas of the NHS that are wasteful indeed. However there are also areas that are stretched beyond what they are capable of dealing with. It needs more money as we are all living longer and it was ill prepared for the baby boomer generation growing old in huge numbers while future generations were smaller in number and therefore struggled to foot the bill.

Mental health services are terrible. People are ignored every day as there just is not the capacity to deal with them. Families are torn apart due to no money being available to help their loved ones.

Schools need money desperately. A school recently had to ask parents to help pay for a new boiler as they simply could not afford to pay for one and so the kids were sitting in cold classrooms. The school for which I am associated with has had to beg for grants in order to get its new boiler (to replace the original antiquated one that barely worked and cost a fortune to run and maintain), they have to pay that grant back. Given that the money available at the end of last year was approximately £0 they are going to have to make cuts to teaching staff in order to pay that. Amazingly they are the most financially stable school in the area! They have equipment that desperately needs replacing and no money to do it with. They also still have an old building to maintain to an acceptable standard for children to learn in. It costs a fortune to simply keep the place in a reasonable state of repair! Entire subjects are getting cut as they are expensive to run and are not required for league tables. Despite those subjects being vitally important for the future of our countries economy.

We need to pour billions into our infrastructure in order to cut emissions after decades of under investment, inaction and ignoring problems that were known a long time ago.

The Military need more ships, more aircraft, more tanks, more personnel, more and better kit. We need more cyber security investment, more secret service investment.

We have finite money despite what the Government promised to spend on everything in the election. Now who gets the money and who does not?

As for Private business being better. It is not necessarily the case. Some businesses are great at cutting waste. Others are terrible. Look at the train companies right now. I have certainly worked for many companies that have been terrible with waste as long as that waste was spent on the senior management and not the staff generating the income. Also private UK companies are often terrible with investing in their staff for the future and are often after short term gains rather than long term stability. The directors often know they can simply cut and run when all goes wrong. I worked for a large company once where a director was caught defrauding the company. He was asked to leave and given a £500,000 golden goodbye. Meanwhile staff were being made redundant… Plus any normal member of staff would have found themselves in prison for what he did. He got a pay off and then went straight to another large company. Most UK companies are still run by people with barely any clue about technology. The waste I see on a daily basis is astounding regarding IT systems! Antiquated working practices and micro management causes all sorts of unnecessary delays. Productive staff leaving as they are not feeling valued or are being scapegoated by senior management leading to expensive recruitment and training to get replacements.

Rant over.

And that was a rant may I say! You talk like I’m some rose tinted spectacled clown with no experience of life! I won’t go into specifics as my own experiences are my own. I’m ex mil, currently working private sector overseas, I have 2 daughters, one a copper and one a teacher, and my wife is ex NHS and now works in a University, and therefore understand and have direct experience of waste and incompetence in Government sector organizations, and let me assure you, the NHS is well funded, but again the first priority is to spend its billions better.

There are always examples of poverty, but you chose to ignore the main point which was that poverty today is, for the vast majority, is nothing like previous generations. The welfare state supports people rather well. However that again needs a decent shake up to ensure money goes where it’s needed.

People’s view are tainted by their political beliefs, no matter how that thought process is justified. We can all give examples which support/debunk a view or an opinion, it’s easy to do. And you talk about spending promises from this government, well all previous governments have been the same, throw money at areas which will get them votes, and damn the rest. The more we all argue the better for those in power, divide and conquer. My party is better than your party shite! So had enough of the warped political theatricals of this country and the useful fools who follow.

The poverty is different today. People in poverty many years back were generally helping each other at least to some degree. People in poverty now often have no one to help and in fact a lot of people trying to do harm.

However I agree that in lots of cases poverty today is not as bad as it has been in the past. But in one of the richest countries on earth, should we have such poverty? Should we have schools that have to scrounge money off parents just to keep their buildings open? Should we have old people in homes being assaulted and starved? And should we have the homeless problem we have?

Plus if you think the NHS is wasteful now, lets see how it is when the US has its way and the NHS is having to spend 4 times as much on drugs. Also many of the issues are because Goverment just tells these bodies to save money. They do not manage the changes and send in trouble shooters etc. So what happens is that the Senior Managers look after themselves and get rid of lower paid staff or their equipment.

My point is simply that we have a lot of issues that need addressing and that need a lot of money to fix (even if that is shorter term in order to fix waste issues). Now, everyone and his dog was promised billions of fantasy money during the election and that is clearly not going to happen. So some areas will have to go without while others are paid for.

Look at HS2. It is now going to be something like £60 Billion over budget! How many frigates could that buy? Given that no one really wanted HS2 and would rather the initial money had been spent on local schemes, that is ludicrous. However there are too many people in Government and donating to the Government that it is unlikely to change.

If that £60 billion had been spent on schools it would have not only solved the current funding issues but also catapulted our school system into the future! There are however not many donors that benefit from spending money on schools though…

So yes waste and mismanagement is a major issue but we have to accept that it is not going away as it currently suits the establishment to be like that.

Oh and I totally agree with you that most political parties promise money for votes. Labour clearly promised even more that the conservatives!

Indeed. Notwithstanding EU rules the MOD have had their own policy of opening RFA builds to competition. If they are designated warships they can’t have them built in S.Korea; hoist by their own petard!

I assume that if the T31 first batch prove to be good ships then in theory it might be best to dump the problematic T23s and order another couple of T31 batches?

It might be.

If the T23’s really are in a poor condition then replacement may be the most cost effective option. Also, the T31’s are bigger and, given the current fit, have smaller crews so potentially more comfortable and less demanding on an over stretched pool of personnel.

Hopefully the T31’s are designed to a 30 year life with a mid-life refit, so whether we keep them or sell on after 15 years there should be some significant potential left in them. If we get a reasonable construction drumbeat we can either chose to maintain a given fleet size of younger ships or expand the fleet by LIFEXing a small number of ships as they get to 15 years. The apparent increase in procurement cost would be off set by reduced running costs and possibly increase availability. It would also make the introduction of new kit easier as the regular drumbeat would provide the opportunity introduce new tech without having to refit existing ships.

All things considered a few extra T31 in place of the tired T23’s would be a step forward, hopefully, both qualitatively and quantitatively.

In an ideal world the T23 LIFEX Programme would not have been necessary, but as we are all aware procrastination and delays with the T26/GCS meant that was the only option.Going forward the regeneration of the Frigate Fleet is now being addressed but the problem is the T26 and T31′ Ships cannot be built quick enough.My priority if extra funding was to be made available would be to speed up the build rate, especially with regards to the T26,then hope to increase the Fleet with further orders.

The slow build rate is less to do with how quickly they can be made, and a lot more related to HMG spreading the cost out over multiple budget years.

The first Type 26 could be completed in 2 years or less, with each subsequent ship built becoming faster and cheaper to build. If money were there to build the ships at the pace they can be built you would probably find the final T26 being built in a little over a year.

Yup, couldn’t agree more, however, given where we are I am beginning to think that the full LIFEX is not looking as cost effective as first impressions suggested.

Much now depends on whether Babcock can bring the T31’s forward in good time and whether we can find the funds to build a couple more.

We’ll see.

If LIFEX does work out to about £35 million per hull and it extends the life of a T23 by 7-10 years id say that seems good value.HMS Richmond is an interesting case,being the first to trial the new Engine Upgrades,could that be one of the reasons for the sedate build time on HMS Glasgow,in that they need to prove that everything works as planned before the point comes where its too late to enable changes and modifications for a First of class ?.

Darren – 40 Escorts would be great but like Steve I can’t see that happening,25+ is to me what the RN should be aiming for.Id also like the idea of a future SSK design to be considered but I’d guess the RN might disagree.

Paul T, you probably know but SSK’s are a lot more capable now and for a lot of what we use the SSN’s for would be perfectly fine. A shallow draft would would have a lot of advantages.

I agree. A class of, say, 6 SSK would be relatively cheap compared to nuclear but highly capable and effective. The only downside I can think of is range but we could base 1 or 2 permanently in HMS Juffair to give reach east of Suez.

This should be in addition to our SSNs, not to replace them.

Adding SSK with sacrificing what?

Donald – adding SSK but complimenting the huge budget required to build and operate SSN,all providing their is sufficient funding to do so.If the current trend is looking at getting value for money out of platforms there are a lot of tasks that an SSK could do to free up the SSN in their specialities.

So you mean cutting a SSN (or two) to buy ~4 (or 8) SSKs?

Note capable SSK, such as Japanese Soryu class is 500M GBP per hull. RAN’s new SSK is much more expensive.

No current SSN’s would need to be cut,the option of looking at SSK would only be worth it if there is (very big if) a substantial increase in Defense spending.

I agree that a return to 25/26 is the most likely outcome, but I arrived at 40 by working out what’s actually needed with the now very likely clean break BREXIT.

40 would (if crewing and maintenance / spares is also taken seriously) allow a forward 28 to 30 fleet of escorts.

This would give the RN a global footprint and allow forward basing of assets.

As Darren said, for an important nation like Great Britain, 40 escorts is not over the top, it’s the foundation of a global navy and sends a strong message to future trading partners and potential foes.

It would allow a balanced fleet to be built around it.

Without doubt, the RN is going to be the most important military asset in protecting our post EU future.

I agree with you in principle but as I said, doubling the Royal Navy just isn’t on the cards and won’t be unless we either 1) face an existential threat such as another Cold War, or 2) the UK economy somehow doubles over the next few years.

25/26 escorts still represents a potent increase in our navy and allows us to have a more global presence whilst still having protection for our carriers. While 40 would be wonderful it’s not realistic.

Priority should be to grow the fleet out to around 25 frigates and destroyers, then up arm them with modern anti-ship missiles to replace the Harpoon.

Accept timing on power upgrades may mean waiting a couple of years but it was one of the five general purpose (GP) 23’s i was referring to. Keep the ASW versions but surely a T45 with harpoon and its AAW capability is more powerful than the GP T23.

You can’t look at the Surface Fleet in isolation. If and when all the Astutes are at sea the ASW situation may be quite good. If and when!

Hi 4thwatch,

I wasn’t. But a reduction is surface ASW capability represents an overall drop our ASW capability, with the SSN fleet being so reduced even with all 7 in service the most that will be at 1st degree readiness would be 4 which would be quite an achievement for the navy.