Navy

Retiring HMS Ocean 'Makes No Strategic Sense'

Retiring the Royal Navy's flagship makes "no makes no strategic sense at all", says a former defence chief.

Lord Boyce said plans to decommission HMS Ocean in 2018 have been made because the military is currently "badly underfunded".

Defence minister Earl Howe rejected claims of naval cutbacks and argued the service was "very much on the up", but Lord Boyce did not find the minister's response "particularly convincing". He said:

"Would the minister agree that paying off Ocean makes no strategic sense at all? And it has been done because actually defence - despite what the minister has just said - is at the moment badly underfunded?"

Ocean, a Devonport-based helicopter carrier and assault ship, only underwent a £65 million upgrade in 2014.

Concerns had already been raised in the House of Lords over the move by former head of the Royal Navy and Labour peer, Lord West of Spithead, who argued it represented "yet again another cut" to the Senior Service. He said:

"There seems to be cut after cut. Here we have a ship that has just had £65 million spent on it in a refit to run until 2025; it is suddenly being laid up in 2018."

He said it was the "most chaotic world" he had known in 50 years on the active list and called for the vessel to be kept "in a reserve status" until the two new aircraft carriers became operational.

But Lord Howe said: "I am afraid I don't share his perception of the Royal Navy as suffering cuts. If anything it is very much on the up."

Independent crossbencher Lord Boyce, who served as Chief of the Defence Staff from 2001 to 2003, also said the cash squeeze was forcing the services to make cuts of 10%, which was having a negative impact on both training and the lives of personnel. He said:

"The current underfunding of defence resources, which is requiring the services to make cuts of the order of 10%, is having a very bad effect on training and quality of life of our soldiers, sailors and airmen."

Lord Howe said: "There are always difficult choices to be made within a fixed budget. That applies to any government department."

However, he said the Royal Navy was to see an increase in the personnel numbers:

"Of course there are manning pinch points. We acknowledge that. The Royal Navy is addressing that. But we have to live within the means that we have and to address the capabilities that we need, and I believe the Navy is doing that."