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Britain forced to ask Nato to track 'Russian submarine' in Scottish waters
Defence experts said it is 'hugely embarassing' that defence cuts mean Britain can no longer patrol its own waters
Britain called in Nato sea patrol planes to hunt for a suspected Russian submarine off Scotland last month, after the Government scrapped its own similar aircraft in defence cuts, it has been disclosed.
Maritime patrol aircraft from France, America and Canada flew to Scotland to join Royal Navy warships hunting for the suspected submarine after it was spotted at sea, west of Scotland
At the height of the hunt in late November and first days of December, four allied patrol planes flew to RAF Lossiemouth to join the search, Aviation Week reported.
The search came a month after another suspected Russian submarine was spotted off Sweden’s Stockholm archipelago and as relations with the Kremlin are at their worst since the Cold War.
Britain scrapped its own maritime patrol aircraft after the cost cutting 2010 defence review, leading to warnings from defence chiefs that the country would be left reliant on others for aircraft to search its own waters.
The Nimrod spy planes had been mainstays of the RAF's reconnaissance fleet since the late 1960s and had a central role in anti-submarine warfare, when they were scrapped with an upgrade programme running nine years late and £800 million over budget.
Angus Robertson MP, SNP defence spokesman, whose constituency contains RAF Lossiemouth, said: “This is hugely embarrassing for the UK which is totally exposed without such critical maritime patrol assets. It is not the first time they have had to depend on the goodwill of allies to fill this massive capability gap.”
Julian Lewis MP said: “It’s inevitable that we will have to call on our allies to meet capability gaps, but what it also shows is the absolute necessity of ring fencing the defence budget at least to the Nato minimum level of two per cent.”
The revelation came as Matthew Barzun, the US Ambassador to London, urged Britain not to cut its defence budget, saying the two countries have a shared foreign policy interests.
Asked at a lunch for journalists in Westminster if he would like to see the defence budget “kept up” during spending cuts, he said: “The easy answer is yes.”
He said the US was “sympathetic” because it faces spending cuts to its own military budgets. “We want to make the world more peaceful, more prosperous and more just. When Britain and the US say that, they mean the same things. That’s why we work together.”
It was not clear if the suspected Russian submarine had been found, or if it had entered British waters. Several Royal Navy warships, including at least one frigate towing submarine detection equipment, joined the search operation, which ended last week.
Ministers have accused the Kremlin of a return to Cold War era aggression in Western European airspace and waters in the past year. Nato has complained of a sharp rise in Russian military flights over the Baltic, while Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, complained earlier this month about the "extremely aggressive probing" of British airspace by Russian aircraft.
Aircraft involved in the search included two US navy P-3 Orions, a Royal Canadian Air Force CP-140 Aurora and a French navy Dassault Atlantique 2 of the French navy. An RAF Sentinel spy plane also joined the hunt.
An MOD spokesperson said: “Nato partners have provided Maritime Patrol Aircraft assistance to the Royal Navy for a limited period of operations from RAF Lossiemouth. We do not discuss the detail of maritime operations.”