Starmer's submarine push sounds impressive, but our nuclear deterrent remains in dire peril

Telegraph

2 days ago

Today, Sir Keir Starmer will pledge that the UK will raise the rate at which it builds submarines to one every 18 months. That sounds splendid, but like many grand government announcements it amounts to little more than a repackaging of what is already happening.
At the moment, Britain is building the Astute class attack submarines. The contract for these was signed in 1997, almost three decades ago. The sixth boat is in the water but not yet in service and the seventh, now to be known as HMS Achilles after the King reportedly vetoed the name Agincourt, may be commissioned next year. Considered on that basis, these submarines will have taken an average of around four years each to acquire. So speeding up production to two every three years sounds very impressive.
But that is to ignore the awful, painful gestation of the Astutes. Before starting work on them, Britain had not designed a new class of submarines for 20 years, and we had forgotten how to do it. After terrible, protracted struggles, cost overruns and delays, we basically had to get the Americans to show us how. A lot of design work was done in Connecticut, and at one stage an American employee of General Dynamics had to be brought in as Astute project director at our submarine yard in Barrow.
The name ship of the class, HMS Astute, finally went into full Royal Navy service in 2014. Succeeding A-boats have arrived at shorter and shorter intervals since then: HMS Achilles may be, in fact, no more than 18 months behind HMS Agamemnon.
The Astute class build problems were not the only issues we've had with our nuclear submarines. In 2010 Lord Cameron, then prime minister, delayed the replacement of our nuclear deterrent Vanguard class submarines to appease his peacenik Lib Dem coalition partners. The old V-boats have now been in service for more than thirty years, and they're starting to really show their age. They need replacing as a matter of urgency: it's now proving so difficult to get the next boat ready once one has gone out on patrol that our deterrent submariners are now routinely having to stay out for more than six months at a time. This can't go on for much longer.
So right now we're already building submarines at a rate of one every eighteen months. It has long been not only the plan to ramp up submarine production to at least this level, but a critical national necessity. We must get the final Astute boats built and out of the way so that we can replace the creaking deterrent V-boats.
So well done for stating all this clearly, Sir Keir. But let's not act as if this is new and all is well.