1.In July 2017 the Government announced that it would be initiating a National Security Capability Review (NSCR), and that Defence would be one part of this review. In the months following this announcement, reports have emerged suggesting that a number of fundamental changes to UK amphibious forces are being considered—notably reductions in the Royal Marines and the possible disposal of the Royal Navy’s Albion class landing platform dock (LPD) vessels. Accordingly, the Committee resolved to inquire into these core elements of amphibious capability that were reportedly under threat and assess their importance to UK Defence.
2.The Committee issued a call for evidence on 27 November 2017, which included the inquiry’s terms of reference. We had one oral evidence session, on 5 December 2017, and received over 100 written submissions, many from retired Royal Marines and Royal Navy personnel with first-hand experience of amphibious warfare over recent decades. They provided detailed evidence of the challenges posed by these complex operations. The Committee also created a web forum to allow members of the public to make more informal submissions. Almost 1,000 submissions were made via this forum.1 We also note the UK Government and Parliament e-Petition entitled ‘Stop the cuts to the Royal Marines and the Royal Navy’s amphibious assault ships’, currently standing at over 25,000 signatories.2 We would like to extend our thanks to the Petitions Committee for raising awareness of our inquiry amongst the e-Petition’s signatories. This level of interest clearly demonstrated the extent of serious public concern. We thank all of those individuals who contributed in any way to the inquiry.
1 A selection of contributions from the web forum is included in Annex 2.
1 February 2018