Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said he was “proud” to see the submarine HMS Anson make her maiden journey.
The Astute Class nuclear-powered attack submarine, which was built at a cost of £1.3 billion, was formally commissioned into the Royal Navy at a ceremony in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, in August last year.
HMS Anson, the fifth Astute Class submarine, has now headed out to the open sea for the first time as it heads to His Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde, in Scotland, home of the UK’s Submarine Service.
Anson is expected to undertake sea trials before joining the other four Astute Class submarines in operational service – HMS Astute, HMS Ambush, HMS Artful and HMS Audacious.
Mr Wallace said: “HMS Anson will play a vital role in defending the UK, providing a competitive edge for decades to come, and I am proud to see her make her journey up to her permanent home on the Clyde.
“Supporting tens of thousands of jobs across the UK, our Astute Class submarines are a leading example of our commitment to defence manufacturing, continuing to boost British industry for decades to come.”
HMS Anson was designed and built by BAE Systems.
Steve Timms, managing director of the firm’s submarines business, said: “It’s with enormous pride that we bid farewell to HMS Anson as she departs our site to take up her vital role helping to protect the UK’s national security.
“This is a truly national endeavour, so delivering the most capable attack submarine ever built for the Royal Navy is a tremendous moment for our company, our employees, the Barrow community and the whole of the submarine enterprise, not least our vast and crucially important UK-wide supply chain.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here