A new fleet of frigates, described as “global combat ships” designed to play crucial roles, has been delayed indefinitely, the Ministry of Defence has said in testy exchanges with MPs over huge financial and technical problems facing the navy’s surface vessels.

Delays in building the Type 26 frigates – a project promised by David Cameron before the 2014 Scottish independence referendum – is threatening shipbuilding jobs on the Clyde in Scotland.

The project’s problems come on top of serious mechanical failures in the navy’s new fleet of Type 45 destroyers. Key tasks of the navy’s frigates and destroyers include protecting two new large aircraft carriers now being assembled in Rosyth as well as Trident nuclear weapons submarines approaching and leaving their base on the Clyde.

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“I can’t give you a time or a date,” Tony Douglas, the MoD’s top official responsible for military equipment, said on Wednesday after he was asked by MPs on the Commons defence committee when the frigate design would be approved. “It could be next year.” Harriett Baldwin, a new junior defence minister, told the MPs: “We do not know yet.”

Douglas added later that the MoD was “now in the heart of negotiations” with BAE Systems, designer and manufacturer of the frigates.

The number of planned new frigates has already been cut from 13 to eight, though the MoD has the option to build five smaller and cheaper general-purpose vessels. One of the problems is how to make the frigates as quiet as possible to make it harder for them to be detected by Russian submarines.

Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, described the delay as a “disgraceful betrayal and a breach of the promise made in the [independence referendum]”.

Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) If true, this is a disgraceful betrayal of the Clyde shipyard workers - and a breach of the promise made in #indyref https://t.co/PoBvLhgevn

Admiral Sir Philip Jones, first sea lord and head of the navy, told the MPs that one problem was the cost of designing quiet ships. Asked if the navy could manage with fewer surface ships than the current planned total of 19, he told MPs that it would have to tailor the number to the tasks that could be carried out. His predecessors have described even the 19 figure as “totally inadequate”.



Nearly £2bn has been earmarked for the frigate project, Douglas told the committee, which heard there was a £750m gap between the estimated initial cost and the funds that have been been allocated to the project because of defence budget pressures.

These pressures are more likely after the Commons on Monday approved the building of four new Trident submarines at an official cost of at least $31bn but which, many experts say, could be significantly higher.

Julian Lewis, Conservative chair of the defence committee, warned that delays could lead to more money being spent on the new frigate fleet and on extending the life of the existing Type 23 frigate fleet. He reminded the MoD of previous navy “disasters”, including those involving the Astute class of nuclear-powered submarines.

The navy’s new fleet of Type 45 destroyers, which cost £1bn apiece, has also encountered serious and embarrassing mechanical failures. Jones said that although the destroyers were designed for hot climates, their resilience had “degraded catastrophically”, with problems in high summer in the Red Sea and the Gulf.

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He said the destroyers could not operate “all of the time, in every place, every day of the year”. But he added that they had provided an “almost continuous presence in the Gulf”.

Gary Cook, GMB regional officer and chairman of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, described the news as “an absolute abandonment of responsibility not just to those people who are worried about their jobs but to the security of the nation”.

“The Royal Navy is crying out for those frigates, but there doesn’t seem to be any leadership at all at the MoD. They need to find the money and get these ships built for the workers, the Royal Navy and the nation,” he said.

Describing how Upper Clyde shipyard workers had faced continual job insecurity since the independence referendum, Cook added: “These workers need some leadership and continuity. How do we tackle the shortfall in terms of work now that these ships have been delayed again? The Westminster government clearly feels that workers in Scottish yards are fair game.”

The SNP’s defence spokesman in Westminster, Brendan O’Hara, said that it would be unforgivable if Clyde ship workers had to pay the price for Brexit and spiralling Trident costs.

He said: “When I asked about the scale and range of cuts to the defence budget because of Brexit and the huge cost of Trident I got no answer. Today, Harriett Baldwin has given us part of the answer. Her comments about the Type 26 programme will have been no comfort to the workers on the Clyde who now look like they are facing an indefinite delay.



“The enormous cost of Trident appears to be spiralling out of control – and it would be completely unacceptable and unforgivable if the Clyde yards had to pay the price for the Tory obsession with Trident, a weapon of mass destruction that 58 of Scotland’s 59 MPs opposed this week and an economic black hole caused by Brexit.’’

A government spokesperson said later: “The UK government is committed to building ships on the Clyde and to the Type 26 programme. Over the next decade, we will spend around £8bn on Royal Navy warships and, because Scotland voted to remain part of the UK in 2014, will continue to be an important manufacturing base for them.”

Defence officials added that the £750m gap between the estimated initial cost and the funds that have been been allocated to the frigate programme because of defence budget pressures was identified by an independent expert, not by the MoD.





