The Affordable Future Fleet 

Affordability is not a new issue. There has been pressure on Defence budgets for many years but never more so than at present, with Governments facing reduced tax receipts as a result of the worldwide economic downturn, inflation in the Defence sector outpacing the generally accepted national averages and an ever increasing role for maritime forces on an unstable geopolitical stage.

The theme of the conference was established around 18 months ago, when affordability of the equipment programme for the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence was already under close scrutiny. Since then both main political parties have stated that they would hold a Strategic Defence Review following the general election to be held later this year. The challenges that we currently face in the Royal Navy are only likely to be more difficult following this review.

The aim of the conference is to address and debate what might make up an affordable future fleet; both for the Royal Navy but also for all other international naval forces. Should the fleet be high end warfighting centric or comprise a larger number of smaller vessels for anti-piracy, anti-narcotics, etc or more likely, somewhere in between.

The venue for INEC 2010 is the Rope Store in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, which together with HMS Warrior for the conference reception and Boathouse No7 for the conference dinner make a most appropriate backdrop for our deliberations.

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