The white paper "Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The Strategic Defence Review" (Cm 7948), presented to the House on 19 October 2010, explained the Government's intention to make certain changes to the armed forces in order to deliver the force structure we require for the future and to help address the legacy of unaffordability in the defence budget. I am now able to explain more fully those changes that affect the Royal Navy's surface fleet.

We announced that the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal would be decommissioned and accordingly, she will finally be withdrawn from service at the end of this month. We also announced that we would decommission either her sister ship HMS Illustrious or the landing platform helicopter HMS Ocean following a short study into which of these two ships was better able to provide the capability we require over the next few years. This work has now been completed and we have decided that HMS Ocean should be retained to provide our landing platform helicopter capability for the longer-term. HMS Illustrious will be withdrawn from service in 2014, once HMS Ocean has emerged from a planned refit and been returned to a fully operational state. This will ensure that we retain the ability to deliver an amphibious Intervention force from the sea and maintain an experienced crew to support the later introduction into service of the new Queen Elizabeth class carrier.

The White Paper also explained that four frigates would be withdrawn from service in 2011. These are the remaining Type 22 frigates HMS Chatham, Campbeltown, Cumberland and Cornwall. Chatham will be withdrawn from service at the end of January 2011 and Campbeltown and Cumberland will follow on 1 April. HMS Cornwall will be withdrawn at the end of April once she has returned from her current operational deployment to the Indian Ocean.

Other changes affect the Navy's amphibious ships. The Bay class amphibious support ship to be decommissioned will be RFA Largs Bay. She will be withdrawn from service in April 2011. One of our two landing platforms dock will in future be placed at extended readiness while the other is held at high readiness for operations. From November 2011 the high readiness ship will be HMS Bulwark, and on current plans this will change to HMS Albion in late 2016 when Bulwark enters a refit period.

The final changes affect the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. The White Paper said that there would be a fleet of resupply and refuelling vessels scaled to meet the Royal Navy's requirements. With a smaller surface fleet these requirements are correspondingly lower, and hence we have decided to withdraw from service from April 2011 the auxiliary oiler RFA Bayleaf and the auxiliary oiler replenishment RFA Fort George.