Berwick MP's visit to naval dockyard

Berwick MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan joined colleagues to visit the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers at Rosyth Dockyard in Scotland yesterday.
From left, Byron Davies MP (Conservative, Gower) Ranil Jayawardena MP (Conservative, North East Hampshire), Ruth Smeeth MP (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent North & Kidsgrove) and Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP (Conservative, Berwick-upon-Tweed).From left, Byron Davies MP (Conservative, Gower) Ranil Jayawardena MP (Conservative, North East Hampshire), Ruth Smeeth MP (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent North & Kidsgrove) and Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP (Conservative, Berwick-upon-Tweed).
From left, Byron Davies MP (Conservative, Gower) Ranil Jayawardena MP (Conservative, North East Hampshire), Ruth Smeeth MP (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent North & Kidsgrove) and Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP (Conservative, Berwick-upon-Tweed).

The carriers will be the biggest and most powerful surface warships ever constructed for the Royal Navy and will represent a huge increase in capability. They will begin sea trials next year and should be fully-operational in 2018, having first been commissioned in 1998’s Strategic Defence Review.

Mrs Trevelyan said: "It was great to see first-hand such an impressive project, managed by an exceptional team of industrial partners and the Royal Navy working together to maximise the logistics of such a complex ship. The QE-class carriers will provide a step change to our military capability and the work our armed forces continue to do in protecting Britain's interests around the globe, supporting humanitarian crises and defending our nation and allies through Nato efforts."

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The visit was organised as part of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme, an initiative in which MPs and peers of all parties spend a year building up their knowledge of the armed forces through briefings and visits in order to better equip them to take part in debates on the UK’s future military engagements and the way in which our armed forces operate.

Mrs Trevelyan is assigned to the RAF wing of the scheme and her year so far has included a visit to RAF Boulmer in her constituency. She said: "It was always very important to me that I gain as in-depth an understanding as possible of what life is like for our armed forces and their families, so I can better understand the challenges they face and what we as a nation ask them to do. It was particularly important as I have RAF Boulmer in my constituency, and it was great to visit them and to welcome some of them down to Westminster at the end of last year."