Shrunken Royal Navy has more admirals than warships, official documents reveal

Official documents reveal there are 34 senior fleet commanders but, after years of cuts, the number of operations vessels with offensive capability is down to 19.

MPs warn it is a major decline in our seafaring capability.

Shadow Defence Secretary Nia Griffiths said: “It is clear that this government is running down our Royal Navy.

“Defence Ministers have stood by as the number of Royal Navy vessels has fallen to historically low levels. Their failure to recruit and retain enough Royal Navy personnel means that it is becoming increasingly challenging to crew the ships that we have.”

The Royal Navy was the largest on the planet until the Second World War but is now the smallest since Nelson fought at Trafalgar.

It is composed of 75 ships, of which only 20 are classed as major surface combatants – which MPs say is the official definition of a warship.

A defence review in 1997 stated the minimum number of escorting destroyers and frigates should be 32 yet this has been cut to 19.

'HISTORICALLY LOW'

There are six guided-missile destroyers, 13 frigate and one aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth but which will not be operational until 2020.

The Royal Navy said there were 34 serving Admirals, Vice Admirals and Rear Admirals and 75 ships.

But a insisted they were all warships because they were painted grey and manned by sailors.

These included patrol craft, used to train university students and patrol inland waters, and survey ships which are used for mapping.

All naval vessels have machine guns or 30mm canon but only the 19 bigger shipsare armed with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles and whose role is to destroy other ships, aircraft and submarines.

A Royal Navy spokesman insisted: “The Royal Navy does not have more Admirals than warships.”

But Labour MP John Spellar, a former armed forces minister who sits on the Commons defence committee, said: “If all these vessels are warships, then they should be built in the UK under procurement rules.

“Yet the MoD say tell us support vessels which have some defensive equipment on board aren’t warships for these purposes. They can’t have it both ways.”



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