Conservatives mix up fictional James Bond boat with a real Royal Navy warship

THE Tories’ defence chief got a ship from James Bond confused with a real Navy one in a query to officials.

James Cartlidge asked the Ministry of Defence about the cost of repairing the non-existent HMS Devonshire.

The fictional ship is sunk by the villain in 1997 film Tomorrow Never Dies, starring Pierce Brosnan as 007.

And the last Royal Navy vessel called HMS Devonshire was built in the 1960s and sunk for target practice in the Atlantic in 1984.

But Mr Cartlidge, who was Defence Minister until last July, used Parliament’s written questions to ask Labour’s Defence Secretary John Healey “what estimate he has made of the cost of repairing structural damage to HMS Devonshire”.

Defence chiefs toyed with writing a flippant 007- inspired response.

But they also wondered if he was asking about salvaging a decades-old wreck from the bottom of the ocean.

Instead, Defence Procurement Minister Maria Eagle said simply: “There is no ship of the name HMS Devonshire currently in service with the Royal Navy.”

Mr Cartlidge then realised he meant to ask about HMS Northumberland, a specialist sub-hunting frigate the Government axed in November, claiming that repairing it would be “uneconomical.”

Last night, he joked that he intentionally made the blunder to see if the MoD was using AI instead of humans to answer questions.

He said: “I’m pleased to say they passed the test on this occasion.

Following confirmation in a separate written answer that submissions to the much vaunted Strategic Defence Review will be read by AI, it’s fair to say we’ve been testing . . . they are still being read by humans.”