Suggesting that Scotland’s coast is undefended is both inaccurate and irresponsible, the Defence Secretary told the Commons, offering in the same answer to work with the Scottish Government on the defence of the United Kingdom regardless of constitutional differences.
Lara Bird, the Scottish National Party member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, asked the Secretary of State to station a warship permanently on Scotland’s north coast, and set the request against what she described as a sevenfold difference in defence spending between south east England and Scotland.
Bird said: “Scotland is currently on the front line of defending the High North. And yet, despite the very real threats that we face, the UK government currently spends seven times more on defence in the south east of England than in the whole of Scotland combined. And so, given those very real threats that we face, and given that our coastline is currently undefended by the Royal Navy, will the Secretary of State commit to placing a surface level vessel permanently on the north coast of Scotland?”
Wes Streeting, the Secretary of State for Defence, said: “Can I just sort of say gently to the hon. Member that I think it is both inaccurate and irresponsible to suggest that Scotland’s coast is undefended, and in the same spirit, just to underscore to her, I am very willing to work with the Scottish Government in defence of the United Kingdom, regardless of our constitutional differences. It is important that we work together and I hope we can do so in the question.”
His Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde at Faslane is the Royal Navy’s largest site in Scotland and the home of the submarine service, holding the Vanguard class boats that carry the deterrent and the Astute class attack submarines alongside them, with the whole submarine flotilla consolidating there.
RAF Lossiemouth flies the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft that track Russian submarines through the Greenland Iceland United Kingdom gap, and holds Typhoons at quick reaction alert for the northern half of British airspace. River class offshore patrol vessels work Scottish waters on fishery protection and maritime security tasking, and the Fleet Ready Escort is held at short notice to shadow Russian warships as they transit.
HMS Prince of Wales and her strike group deployed to the High North this month on Operation Firecrest, with F-35B Lightning jets flying from the carrier in the North Atlantic, and the Royal Navy has spent the year building the pattern of surface deployments north of Scotland that the deployment sits within.
Versions of the claim have reached the Commons before, and this publication has examined an earlier assertion that there are no Royal Navy vessels in Scottish waters, and has tested the related argument that Scotland is short changed on defence spending.
Figures published last month put Ministry of Defence spending with Scottish industry at £2.53 billion, a thirteen per cent real terms increase on the previous year, worth £460 a head and supporting 12,200 jobs. The House of Commons Library, working from the previous year’s regional statistics, puts spending with industry in South East England at £7.9 billion, or £820 a person, against a United Kingdom average of about £460.
The Arctic Policy Framework published last week named Russian activity around undersea cables and pipelines as a threat to critical national infrastructure and described the shadow fleet as a systemic risk, which puts official policy close to Bird’s description of where Scotland sits. The Lunna House Agreement signed with Norway commits the two navies to protecting those links across the North Atlantic, and the Defence Committee is running an inquiry into the High North, with written evidence submitted this month setting out how uncrewed platforms and Type 26 frigates would provide persistent anti-submarine surveillance in the gap.
