Royal Navy: HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth branded "unreliable" as ex chief calls for refund

Lord Alan West of Spithead, a former First Sea Lord, made the claims in Westminster today (February 12) after the recent delays. HMS Prince of Wales left HMNB Portsmouth this afternoon in a delayed departure - originally due to set sail yesterday (February 11). The Ministry of Defence (MoD) gave no reason for the postponement. The £3.2bn warship replaced HMS Queen Elizabeth in heading up Exercise Steadfast Defender after a mechanical fault was found in "pre-sailing" checks.

The issue was a propeller shaft coupling being faulty, leading to the aircraft carrier's sailing on February 4 being cancelled. HMS Prince of Wales is now heading to the North Sea on Nato's largest mission since The Cold War - involving more than 40 vessels. Security minster Tom Tugendhat branded Sunday's postponement as "not acceptable".

The problems to both vessels come 18 months after HMS Prince of Wales broke down off the cost of the Isle of Wight, when it also suffered a malfunction with a coupling on its starboard propeller. The ship was taken to the Babcock shipyard where it was built in Rosyth, Fife, to undergo repairs to a propeller shaft, which took nine months to complete. The MoD has said problem on HMS Queen Elizabeth was “separate and not linked” to the earlier defect on its sister ship.

Raising the issue in an urgent question in Parliament, former head of the Royal Navy, Lord West said: “I am very concerned about the initial problem the Prince of Wales had almost two years ago with the shaft misalignment. Can the minister say how are we going to get some payment from the people who built the ship? To have accepted it with a shaft that was misaligned was bad and it was badly built and somehow we should be able to get money back from the builders rather than the UK public paying for that damage.”

Later, former defence minister Lord Soames of Fletching, who is Sir Winston Churchill’s grandson, said: “Would the minister agree that disappointingly these aircraft carriers, which are in any event extremely vulnerable in the theatre of operations, also appear to be unreliable? Would he confirm to the House that there will have sailed with the aircraft carrier an added complement to her crew from the civilian engineers responsible for these problems?”

Responding, defence minister the Earl of Minto said: “My understanding is that is the case. Clearly these matters are looked at very seriously throughout these exercises and obviously one hopes that the reliability of these extremely complicated pieces of equipment improves.”