Source · Select Committees · Defence Committee
Recommendation 5
5
Deferred
Enhance JEF’s deployable capability, including Royal Navy ships, to combat grey zone threats in the Arctic.
Recommendation
The Government should consider enhancing the JEF’s deployable capability to combat grey zone threats, such as protecting seabed infrastructure and permitting extended military operations in the High North/Arctic, for example by reinforcing the bows of Royal Navy ships, including the future Type 83 Destroyers. (Recommendation, Paragraph 45) 27
Government Response Summary
The government accepted the recommendation with caveats, stating that specific capability commitments, such as for the Type 83 Destroyer or future icebreaker capabilities, will be considered as part of the Defence Investment Plan due in autumn 2025.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
We accept this recommendation with caveats. As stated in the NSS and SDR, the High North and Polar regions are an area of increasing competition and should be seen as regions of increased strategic interest. Bilateral agreements and capability partnerships will be crucial to burden and knowledge sharing. The JEF is already helping track potential threats to undersea infrastructure and monitoring the Russian shadow fleet. The Royal Navy supports these operations via a range of capabilities and will continue to do so with new capabilities as they become available. Exercise Nordic Warden in January 2025 demonstrated the effectiveness of this collaboration. The Type 83 Destroyer is one element of the Future Air Dominance System programme, which has commenced its concept phase. In addition to investment in capabilities to address threats to undersea infrastructure, which will be met by Atlantic Bastion, the Royal Navy is considering the role of future icebreaker capabilities to deliver the SDR vision. All capability requirements will be considered as part of the Defence Investment Plan, which will be completed in autumn 2025, so we cannot commit to specific capabilities at this stage.