Navy

Morale's high and Navy's ready to fight, First Sea Lord tells BFBS in candid interview

8th July 2026 at 4:00pm

Being ready for war is not an option, says First Sea Lord

General Sir Gwyn Jenkins invited BFBS Forces News to HMNB Portsmouth to inspect how work is progressing on HMS Daring and reflect on a year at the helm.

Starting off, he said morale was remarkably high across the Royal Navy, as he and reporter Tim Cooper traversed the ship.

"We're growing as a Navy for the first time in decades," he said. "And that is because people are gripped by the sense of purpose of the times we live in and the belief in what the Royal Navy can do. So I think morale will inevitably rise as we get more ships to sea."

Sailors keen to get to sea

Daring – a Type 45 air defence destroyer – has been laid up since 2017 pending her 2020 refit, but is now set to resume her duties later in the year.

Gen Sir Gwyn said those on board the warship – like sailors across the Royal Navy as a whole – were keen to get out to sea.

"Most people join the Royal Navy to go to sea – it's kind of in the job title," he said. "So sailors want to be on these ships and operating them.

"They see what we've done with HMS Dragon recently and her deployment out to the Gulf. She's on operations right now, and you talk to the sailors on board [HMS Daring] and they want some of the same."

The First Sea Lord had a lengthy discussion with reporter Tim Cooper during which no topics were off the table (Picture: BFBS) — The First Sea Lord had a lengthy discussion with BFBS Forces News reporter Tim Cooper during which no topics were off the table (Picture: BFBS)

Phoenix ship

The First Sea Lord said he was happy to have overseen a rise in recruitment since he took over the role.

He added: "I'm just as happy in how we've made progress on retaining people in the service as well.

"Because doing recruiting is one thing [but] retention is just as important – and that comes from job satisfaction, from a sense of purpose, from a belief in what we do – and this is a large part of that."

The Royal Marines officer said the level of investment across the Royal Navy was on a scale that hasn't been seen for 30 years.

He said the refit of HMS Daring was testament to that.

"This is the phoenix ship," he said. "This is the ship that was dormant for too long [that] is now getting back to sea, is now a home for sailors, is now going to go on operations."

Gen Sir Gwyn ensured Tim Cooper and the BFBS team were given full access to Type 45 air defence destroyer HMS Daring (Picture: BFBS)

Ready for the fight

Gen Sir Gwyn was asked about the state of the Navy's warfighting readiness, to which he replied: "It's not optional – there's no choice in this. It was ordered in the [Strategic] Defence Review.

"You only have to look at the state of the world, you only have to understand the role of Nato in protecting the UK and you realise that we have to be ready for warfighting.

"If we're ready for warfighting, we can genuinely establish deterrence. We need to prove that we can fight and win in order to avoid the war we don't want to have to fight.

"What's really impressed me with the Royal Navy [after] one year in command is how well everybody has responded to that.

"And you could see it on this ship. You can see it across the Navy: 'How do we fight with what we've got make the best of what we have and make sure we can do what we need to do for this nation?'"

The visit didn't just involve HMS Daring, as the pair examined other vessels berthed at the Portsmouth base as well (Picture: BFBS)

'No sugarcoating challenges'

Despite the progress being made, Gen Sir Gwyn accepted challenges still existed.

"It's not my style to sugarcoat the challenges that we've got in the Navy," he pointed out.

"Decades of under-investment in our infrastructure and in our maintenance sustainment facilities – of course they've had an effect.

"But Dragon itself? Six weeks' work in six days. I came down here and saw her being stored up that weekend before she deployed [to the Eastern Mediterranean].

"Just the energy and the enthusiasm from the sailors and the contractors and the civil servants – all of whom were working as one team.

"I was super-proud of what they did. And it was absolutely the right decision to deploy that ship.

"She is the latest of the Type 45s. She's got all the upgrades. She is good to go."

Gen Sir Gwyn is currently in his first year as First Sea Lord - and in another first is the only Royal Marines officer to have held the role (Picture: BFBS) — Gen Sir Gwyn is currently in his first year as First Sea Lord – and in another first is the only Royal Marines officer to have held the role (Picture: BFBS)

Silent Service a priority

"Submarines are my number one priority," the First Sea Lord said. "The nuclear business that we're involved in, the nuclear deterrent, is the bedrock of all of UK defence.

"But I think we have to be really clear – back to not sugarcoating the challenges we've got – I was on the record earlier this year talking about decades of under-investment in our nuclear businesses.

"I think that's what has left us with an availability challenge in our submarines. My job is to turn that around.

"We've got two principal programmes running – the submarine maintenance recovery programme, that's all about getting the right tools to the right people at the right time in order to fix our submarines.

"It sounds like a simple solution; it's fiendishly complex. It involves building new infrastructure. We've got new workshops now on the Clyde. We've built new accommodation for our sailors on the Clyde.

"We've got a new training facility that's just opened. So there's a lot of investment going into this.

"But fundamentally... it's about dry docks. It's about supply chains. It's about re-energising the whole of the nuclear business with our defence nuclear enterprise colleagues in order to get these submarines to sea."