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.
Need a general election to remove the lying – traitorous and parasitic Labour Party from power asap.
The vile Labour Party are not taking defence seriously at all.
To replace with who though? The last lot that dismantled everything we had, and not just in defence either? Nobody else stands a chance of winning. So who? The country’s rotten to its core with nobody who gives a damn about us involved in politics.
Nonsense. On defence most parties have been relatively consistent, just as other Countries have.
The difference now is that the Tories are willing cut stuff to transfer money to defence but Labour can’t because they are severely worried they will lose support and consequently any election. Reform have missed their moment and suffer from the problem that all single policy parties suffer from. All the opposing parties need to do is undermine that one issue with a better obvious solution. That will become apparent once an election is called.
Opposition is easy, when they were in power they did not move the dial. Labour has done that a bit, I will wait to see if labour commit to 3% by the end of the parliament when they undertake their spending review.
If anyone thinks that if the Tories had won the last election they would be doing much different they are really not looking at the evidence.. it would be the Labour Party in opposition calling for the commitment to 3% and the Tory MPs focused on tax cuts not defence spending.
In the end I don’t have a party I can vote for and know they will get defence right.. because they all only do defence when the wolf is at the door.
No point in talking about previous Tory Governments. New leadership and a younger party now. Everything is quietly changing. They were quite pleased to see the final few disappearing off in the last couple of years.
Yep. Consistently disastrous.
There All crap… been saying it since pre 70s…! Political System is Britain biggest Problem… Stupid career Politicians put in charge of Departments they haven’t the faintest idea how to run or what direction to take…
Like blind people driving cars in a quarry…!
Sorry blind People no offence ment..!
They aren’t in charge and they are not supposed to run the department.
The Civil Servants run the department. Politicians make the policy.
Civil Servants write the statements read out in the house of commons by the politicans.
Civil Servants serve several Governments and should be capable although they do move around a bit too much in the name of career progression.
Treating defence seriously requires keeping your mouth shut occasionally.
Something we all need to do.
We can open our mouths, we just all need to understand that every conversation has a tiny tiny impact on the security of our nation.. every time we fall into argument or creative significant division for argument or divisions sake we help the enemy a bit.
Many on here will understand that there is a shift to keeping quiet.
Sure some stuff remains accessible as a matter of policy. However if in doubt most will not discuss on open forums.
You can see that in the anti drone tec it’s only released when it’s used or it’s obvious.. to be honest this is a touch worrying, because it may mean that secretly the government has assessed that Russia is now beyond “ deterrence “, because to do deterrence you must do the 3Cs and the core one is communicating, that means trawling your wears in public so the enemy you are deterring knows exactly what is going to smash his face in if he starts.. you only begin to hide your strength if you think there is no longer a point in deterrence ( essentially you think conflict is likely inevitable and you are hiding your advantages).
Vile, traitorous, and parasitic.
No bias there then.
This would be one area that a bit of money and actions now could make a difference.. especially with hardened shelters for the RAF as these are easier than shelters for SSNs SSBNs.
For me the Airbus A330-200 Multi-Role Tanker Transport, wedgetails and Poseidons should have dedicates hard shelters as should a good number of the active fighter force..
Finally it’s my view that the safest place for resources to be is deployed to sea.. so there needs to be money spent and ensuring as many maritime assets as possible can be surged as quickly as possible.in the end Russia cannot fire things at a deployed submarine or surface vessel, unless it can detect it and get a kill chain, the RAF also would need to get over itself a bit and be ready to move the whole F35 force to a carrier in time of war… as a carrier is a hell of a lot harder for Russia to find, track, target and hit than an airbase.
Undies anyone have HAS for a 737 sized plane?
The free span would be enormous.
Could possibly be done with sprayed concrete over an inflatable form: maybe even sprayed with fibre reinforcement in it.
Not so much a HAS, but a ballistic shelter.. in the end drones have very limited blast frag warheads and Russians ballistic missiles are not so accurate. Build a deep revetment, which is basic civil engineering stuff, then put a blast resistant lid on it.. it’s not perfect but would manage anything that was not direct hit cruise or ballistic missile.
Or you go the school of fish defence and buy a ton of Losberger De Boer type temporary aircraft shelters..and scatter them all over the airfields.. far more than you have aircraft, then move the aircraft between them and even randomly move the shelters around.
Even dispersal would be a start.
Seemingly for convenience of maintenance, these assets are lined up in rows.
The Fast Jet fleet would all have a HAS each if dispersed to Leemimg, Leuchars, Boscombe, Honington, Wattisham ( need to reopen Honington runway I don’t think it’s operational, and refurb those stations fuel, GPSS, and armaments stores ( SSA )
Which brings me back to the same point, where are the RAF staff to do that? No uplift in RAF personnel as it costs money.
I don’t care how poor the Russian targeting is, they took it seriously in the Cold War, so why not now.
Yes these are the things that can be done that makes it hard for Russia to simply day cause massive damage to UK defence infrastructure.
The RAF and RN need resilience planning that we are not yet seeing around the ability to survive a Russian day one strike..
That means for the RN the ability to get ships to sea as soon as a Russian surge is detected and as you say disperse the RAF and use those old Cold War shelters.
Common sense is normally lost when Cost is mentioned..!
In the End they can’t convince themselves that they can justify the cost..!
Yes it’s bizarre, they don’t seem to understand that the things you Need are not the same as the things you want… what always stuck in my mind was that Pratt Cameroon when he said to the nation “ the credit card has been maxed out” …. My answer was, so you still buy food and pay the mortgage… defence is the national version of paying the mortgage.