Examination of Witnesses (Questions 312-319)
RT HON
DES BROWNE,
MR DESMOND
BOWEN, MR
TOM MCKANE,
REAR ADMIRAL
ANDREW MATHEWS
RN, MR NICK
BENNETT AND
MS MARIOT
LESLIE
6 FEBRUARY 2007
Q312 Chairman: Can I say to everyone,
welcome to this session, which is the final session of our inquiry
into the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent. This is our third inquiry
into that issue and what we intend to do is to conduct an inquiry
and produce our report in order to help the public's and Parliament's
debate on the Government's proposals and to publish our report
at the beginning of March. Secretary of State, welcome. Thank
you for the written material you have put in and thank you particularly
for producing your response to our second inquiry and speeding
up that response in order to allow us to use that for this evidence
session, the one into the skills base. I said we will publish
our report on this inquiry at the beginning of March, but can
you give us an indication as to when the debate is likely to be
in the House of Commons?
Des Browne: I am afraid I am not
in a position at this stage to give an indication as to when that
debate will be, but I have already said, as I think you will recollect
in answer to a similar question in the House, that I am anticipating
it will be some time in March.
Q313 Chairman: Would you like to
introduce your team very briefly, please.
Des Browne: Thank you very much
for your welcome and for the recognition of the response to your
report on skills which I was pleased to be able to respond to
in time to inform this and your other deliberations. On my far
left I have Mariot Leslie who is from the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office and she is here today because she has expertise in relation
to disarmament and counter-proliferation questions. Immediately
to my left is Desmond Bowen who is the MoD Policy Director and,
I suspect, not a stranger to the Committee who can deal with detailed
questions on deterrent policy and the rationale for retaining
a nuclear deterrent and more generally how the deterrent fits
in with the rest of our defence policy. On my immediate right
is Rear Admiral Andrew Mathews who is Director General Nuclear
in the Ministry of Defence, our expert on the Vanguard-class submarines,
the development of the replacement submarines and submarine and
submarine industry issues more widely and maybe busier than the
rest of us! Then to my far right is Tom McKane, Director General
of Strategic Requirements in the Ministry of Defence who will
cover deterrent options and costs, should there be any questions
requiring detail in relation to those areas. Behind me I also
have Nick Bennett who is the Director General of Strategic Technologies
who has come along to assist in the event the Committee wishes
to go into detail on our warhead programme and at an appropriate
time he may come forward to the table.
Q314 Chairman: You are obviously
very well supported. May we begin with a comment that was put
to us recently by Professor Garwin that the White Paper was "highly
premature" because he suggested that the life of the boats
could be extended, like the US Ohio-class submarines, to around
45 years and he said that the decision was not needed now and
that it was being rushed. How would you respond to that or would
you like to respond to that yourself?
Des Browne: I am content to respond
to that myself. That is, I think, an accurate summary of some
quite extensive evidence that Professor Garwin gave and indeed
I have read the paper that he submitted. I think my immediate
response is to say that the key point, and I think this is the
point that informs fundamentally our recommended decision in the
White Paper, is that at the outset we must recognise that this
is firstly an issue about maintaining the key national capability
that the nuclear deterrent is and the level of risk that we are
willing to take with that capability, and you may want at some
time later on or even now, if you wish, to go into the comparison
with the Ohio boats which was at the heart of Professor Garwin's
evidence. Fundamentally, I believe that that comparison is not
particularly useful or indeed relevant because the planned life
of boats is exactly that, it is planned into them at the outset,
and the Ohio class are different submarines, they were designed
differently and they were built and maintained for a longer life
than our boats were.
Q315 Chairman: I think it would be
helpful if you could go into that in some detail because why were
we buying short-life assets back in whenever it was we were buying
these and what is it about the Ohio class that makes them so much
longer-lived in their design?
Des Browne: As with many areas
in relation to this issue, there is information which can be put
into the public domain and information that cannot be put into
the public domain, but we will endeavour, in answering questions,
to put into the public domain as much as we can so that people
can understand the arguments and we may come to parts of this
evidence where we will need to offer some confidential briefing
as we will need to recognise the security classification of the
information.
Q316 Chairman: Yes, except, Secretary
of State, bear in mind that the purpose of this inquiry is to
put as much into the public domain as possible so that it can
inform the debate. We are not necessarily asking for anything
particularly confidential, we are just asking for an explanation
that people can understand as to what is the difference.
Des Browne: Can I start by referring
you, Chairman, and the Committee members to the letter which I
wrote on 1 February and it may be helpful, since this letter is
not yet in the public domain and the content of it is not, if
I read part of that. This deals with some of the detail of extending
the life of our boats beyond the 30-year period which is the time
that we say that it is safe and appropriate and the degree of
risk that we are prepared to take with maintaining this capability
and in terms of the decision-making. It reads, "Life extension
much beyond five years", which is the five in addition to
the 25 that the original design was intended for, "is likely
to require replacement of some of the systems critical to submarine
operations, such as external hydraulic systems, elements of the
control systems (plane and the rudder), sonar systems, electrical
systems (including the main battery) and refurbishment or replacement
of elements of the nuclear propulsion system. This would involve
some hull penetrations. Replacing these systems would require
extended additional maintenance periods, resulting in loss of
boat availability", which is at the heart of our decision-making
process, "and significant cost, but would not enable significantly
increased life. Extension to both component safety justifications
and the whole reactor plant safety justification would also be
required (and could not be assured). Other systems would need
careful assessment and replacement of the turbo generators, secondary
propulsion gear and assemblies, deterrent missile hydraulics,
hatches and mechanisms might be required. There would also be
increasing risks of reliability of other major systems, including
potentially the main engine, gearbox shafting and propulsor, all
of which could require replacement. As was made clear in the White
Paper, we do not at this stage completely rule out further life
extension of the Vanguard class. The key point is that on current
evidence it is highly likely to represent poor value for money.
Moreover, there is also serious concern as to whether it will
be technically feasible. The decision will be kept under review
at each key stage of the programme to design and build the replacement
submarines, but, given the severe uncertainties associated with
life extension beyond the 30-year point, it would be grossly irresponsible
not to start concept and assessment work in time to ensure that
we can field replacement submarines when the Vanguard class reaches
the 30-year point". In summary, such a life extension would
entail too much risk to our national security and the evidence
that we have suggests that it would be poor value for money. If
I may now, I will hand over to the Rear Admiral who, I think,
may be able more accurately to draw, where we can, the comparisons
with the American Ohio-class boats.
Q317 Chairman: Could you explain
at the same time, Rear Admiral, whether the Ohio-class boats are
worked more or less hard than the Vanguard-class boats please?
Rear Admiral Mathews: Within the
classification, I will do my best.
Q318 Chairman: Yes, within the classification.
Rear Admiral Mathews: The principle
we aim to do is to generate one submarine from four at sea on
operational patrol and Professor Garwin implied, therefore, that
our submarines spend about 25% of their time available to generate
that one on patrol. Clearly that is not the case because we have
to train our people, submarines have to conduct trials, they have
to test equipment and they actually have to change over while
on patrol, so actually the time that we have our submarines operationally
available is in excess of 50% and that is pretty comparable with
the US Ohio class. The difference with the Americans is of course
that they are generating say two or three hulls from 14 and that
gives them a considerable amount of flexibility about how they
operate their submarines, what decisions they can make through
life and the balance of risk they can take. One from four is much
tougher. Now, what we know in terms of availability with nuclear
submarines from British operations is that availability reduces
through life. Over the first 20 years, it typically reduces by
about 5 to 7% across that period. Once we have gone beyond 20
years, the three classes which we have got operating records for,
because we have not taken others beyond that yet, show that we
lose availability of around 10 to 15% over the next 10 years,
which is in addition to that 5 to 7%, so that is a significant
drop in availability and it falls off, as I say, fairly sharply.
We know from operating experience that, in getting towards 30
years, four boats becomes very tough in terms of generating one
on patrol and that is where we are at the moment. We do not believe
that the risk equation supports taking Vanguard class beyond 30
years. We have done a lot in terms of managing the Swiftsure class
through those last difficult periods and it has not been good
in terms of availability. With the Resolution class, if I go back
to the early 1990s, we were really struggling to maintain one
boat out at sea. We had people working on the safety justification
seven days a week for a very long period of time and we were losing
people from some of our industry and support because of the hours
we were pressing them to work. We survived that. The point I would
make to the Committee is that Resolution, if Professor Garwin
was right, would still be operating today. We were struggling
in the early 1990s and I do not think it would be conceivable
that we would be successfully maintaining the continuous at-sea
deterrence with that class of submarines now. In terms of Ohio—
Q319 Chairman: Are you going to add
to what the Secretary of State was referring to in the memo?
Rear Admiral Mathews: Only in
detail. As the Secretary of State said, Ohio started off with
a more modern design and has made a different use of materials.
The Americans designed for a longer-life submarine. For instance,
in steam systems they made a decision about up-front investment
to generate that life by using a different material from that
which we do, and I am being careful about what I say in terms
of actual materials. Our steam system, we are confident, will
last 30 years and thereafter we would expect to have to change
a large amount of it. The Americans are confident that the material
they have used will last the extended life of their submarines,
so that puts them in a different sort of place in terms of trade-offs
through life because they designed in a longer life at the outset.
We were driven quite hard in terms of unit production costs at
the outset, so we set ourselves a design time-line and built a
submarine to meet that. Now, the Americans built in some fat in
their design; they can operate their submarines differently, as
I have already mentioned, and they do have that ability to take
some risks in their programme. The final thing I would say is
that they have not got to 42 years yet. It is a plan and they
can afford to take some risk against that plan because they will
have already been bringing in their new-generation SSBN for about
14 years by the time the last Ohio gets to 42 years, so they will
have a much bigger mix in terms of new and old.
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