Former director of nuclear policy at the UK Ministry of Defence, Rear Admiral Philip Mathia, has said the UK is no longer capable of running its nuclear submarine programme, following years of mismanagement. He said the fleet has suffered from “shockingly low availability” rates, with budget cuts and a “huge failure” in the management of key personnel. “The UK is no longer capable of managing a nuclear submarine programme,” he told The Telegraph “Performance across all aspects of the program continues to get worse in every dimension. This is an unprecedented situation in the nuclear submarine age. It is a catastrophic failure of succession and leadership planning.”
Mathias urged the government to withdraw from the AUKUS pact with Australia and the United States, which is meant to provide up to 12 new nuclear submarines for the Royal Navy. It should instead focus on more “cost-effective” systems such as smaller unmanned submarines. He also highlighted ongoing delays to both the delivery of Astute class attack submarines and to the development of Dreadnought class ballistic submarines.
Both programmes have suffered from very significant cost overruns. Although the sixth Astute class ship HMS Agamemnon was commissioned into service in September, “the uncomfortable truth is that she took over 13 years to build – the longest-ever construction time for a submarine to be built for the Navy,” he noted.
Mathias is not alone. Appearing before the Defence Committee, Lord Case, Chair of Team Barrow and former Cabinet Secretary, has warned MPs that the government’s ambition to deliver a new SSN-AUKUS submarine every 18 months faces serious constraints. Asked directly whether the programme is on track, he avoided any assurances. He described the target as “a very demanding target” and added that it would be “a real challenge to deliver”.
The UK has a total of nine nuclear-powered submarines: five Astute-class attack submarines and four Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines with new Dreadnought-class and AUKUS vessels planned.
According to Mathias: “Dreadnought is late, Astute class submarine delivery is getting later, there is a massive backlog in Astute class maintenance and refitting, which continues to get worse, and SSN-AUKUS is a submarine which is not going to deliver what the UK or Australia needs in terms of capability or timescale.”
