The Parliamentary recess provides plenty of opportunity to look in depth at things that take up more time than is available during the sitting periods. This recess has given me the chance to go and spend a week at Portsmouth Naval Dockyard, embedded with the Royal Navy as part of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme.
As an island nation we have always had a strong navy. Yet much is made of the fact that our navy is "not what it used to be". Whilst we do not have the naval manpower we used to have, and not so many ships, the reality is that we have a very strong and advanced navy.
Portsmouth is a centre for training, refitting and provisioning, and harbouring of our warships. It will also be the base for the new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers, two of which will be stationed there by the end of this decade, with the first being delivered in November next year. These ships are three times the size of our previous aircraft carriers and this in itself provides huge logistical challenges, including having to build a new power station to provide electricity for them when they are moored at the new quaysides.
Portsmouth is also the home for our new frigates and destroyers, which are already seen as the very best in terms of naval engineering in the world. Not only does this give us the lead in terms of capability, it also means that our ships require fewer crew to operate them, answering the accusation of lack of manpower. For our older ships, there are dry docks where the ships are refitted and repaired on a regular basis to ensure they are fully operational when in service.
Importantly, Portsmouth also houses a number of training facilities. It is worth bearing in mind that because of the nature of the navy, being in most cases hundreds of miles from the nearest emergency services, all crew need to be trained in firefighting and first aid emergencies. Our training is second to none.
But it is worth asking why we have a navy. It is simple. We need a navy to secure our assets overseas and to ensure our supply lines are protected - our energy needs and our food needs. And it is because of this that we have committed to a minimum of 2% of our GDP to be spent on defence expenditure.