THE UK Government is under pressure to reveal more about an apparent hunt for a foreign submarine off the west coast of Scotland.
It has emerged that Nato planes were called in following a sighting of a periscope late last month, in a location in which Royal Navy submarines normally surface as they head into or out of their base at Faslane.
In the House of Commons, SNP group leader Angus Robertson, who speaks for the SNP on defence issues, raised concern that the UK had apparently been reliant on foreign aircraft, provided by the US, France and Canada.
Since the Government scrapped its Nimrods in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review, the UK has lacked a specialist maritime patrol aircraft.
Mr Robertson told Commons Speaker John Bercow: "In the last day news has emerged of a large-scale maritime security operation taking place off the Scottish coast.
"It is doing so in circumstances where the UK MoD is unable to deploy any maritime patrol aircraft and has had to depend on MTA provided by the US, Canada and France.
"Given how serious a situation this is, have you been advised by the MoD that they intend to make a statement to the House so that we as parliamentarians can be informed of this situation?"
Mr Bercow replied: "I have not been so advised. I have no indication a minister intends to make a statement.
"But you have made your point with force and alacrity and knowing you as I do I rather feel that if you consider you have got a good point, you are not likely to let go of it and it is conceivable even that at appropriate points he might repeat it."
At the height of the operation, five aircraft from four different nations with Royal Navy warships were involved in the search for the mystery vessel, according to a report by the Aviation Week journal.
The MoD has said that it had received assistance from Nato allies but would not say whether they had been searching for a submarine.
The episode has drawn parallels with a similar incident in October, when a suspected Russian submarine was believed to have been seen in waters surrounding an archipelago off Stockholm and Swedish defence officials said they there was no doubt that the country's territorial waters had been violated.
Last month the Royal Navy tracked four Russian warships passing through the English Channel while there has been a recent upsurge in incidents of Russian long-range bombers approaching UK airspace.
Jets from RAF Lossiemouth intercepted a Russian Bear bomber as it approached UK airspace last month, one of several near-incursions during the past few weeks.
The Soviet-era Tupolev Tu-95 aircraft was spotted flying in international airspace and "escorted through the UK flight information region". It was the second flypast by aircraft from Vladimir Putin's air force in three days.
Two Bear bombers were also tracked over the North Sea when Nato radars picked up a series of Russian formations engaged in "significant military manoeuvres", ranging from the Black Sea to the Atlantic Ocean.
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 hereComments are closed on this article