Mr Gray, I am grateful to be called in this important debate, which relates to one of the most important capabilities in our military armoury: amphibiosity. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) on introducing the debate so well.
We are really here today because of the strong rumours that the Ministry of Defence is considering deleting the landing platform docks, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, from the naval inventory. The reason behind that, which seems in effect to be an open secret, is that the Navy top level budget, or TLB, is over-programmed and the First Sea Lord has been asked to come up with savings within his TLB.
I shall return to the budgetary challenge at the end, but the first thing to say is that the Queen Elizabeth carriers, highly capable ships though they are, cannot act as a replacement for the LPDs and do not have their highly specialised capability. Although the carriers could launch marines over the beach by helicopter, either Chinook or Merlin or both, the carriers do not have docks and therefore cannot host landing craft, which would be needed to bring the heavy equipment of a marine commando on to a perhaps hostile beachhead. If we abandon the LPDs, we are in effect relying on a friendly port to be available if we are to land a marine commando or, indeed, 3 Commando Brigade on the shore. It may be a convenient planning assumption to believe that a friendly port will always be available, but that may not necessarily always be the case.
In fact, history teaches us an important lesson about the need to maintain this capability. In 1981, the Nott defence review advocated deleting the Invincible-class aircraft carriers and the assault ships, HMS Fearless and HMS Intrepid, from the naval inventory. At this stage, I have a small confession to make. Following the announcement of the Nott review, as a precocious 16-year-old, I wrote a letter to the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, in 1981 in which I argued that we should not sell our aircraft carriers to Australia because—I still remember the words—as history shows us, we never know when we might need them.
As we all know, in 1982, when the Falklands crisis blew up from almost nowhere, it was only because we still had our carriers and their Sea Harrier aircraft and the amphibious assault ships, Fearless and Intrepid, that we were able to mount an opposed amphibious assault and successfully recapture the Falkland Islands.
No doubt very many intelligent people wrote very articulate staff papers that contributed to the 1981 review and a great deal of intellectual energy was put into the argument that we could do without these ships—but they were all wrong. Maintaining that amphibious capability should be an important part of our national armoury, and NATO’s as well, so what is to be done?
I believe that the alternative option of trying to cull 1,000 Royal Marines would be a grave mistake. The Royal Marines are some of the most elite infantry in the world and are, in effect, tier 2 special forces. We also derive around 40% of our tier 1 special forces, the Special Air Service and the Special Boat Service, from the Royal Marines. Not only do the Royal Marines have an incredibly proud history, having recently celebrated their 350th anniversary; they also have tremendous utility, and I can see no defence advantage at all in getting rid of 1,000 of the best maritime infantry in the world.