I'd reduce the old growth by half to help prevent wind rock but then prune properly in mid march to two buds. the top most one being outward facing.
hubby reduced the climbing roses yesterday to about 3ft while I was out. I expect them to break further down come the spring so I can tie in the new growth.

I'd wait until later. I never prune mine until March.

Thank you for your advice. I will certainly act on it.

I do them here last week of February/first week of March, depending on weather conditions, but I'm in west London, where its milder. I might remove some long growths the previous autumn to prevent wind rock, but otherwise, the main prune is done late February - if you're further north, it might need to be a little bit later. That applies to floribunda and hybrid tea bush roses as well as climbers - ramblers should have their main prune in September.

I shorten them enough to avoid wind rock in early winter and do the main prune in March - which week depends on the weather - the hope is to avoid any tender new shoots being killed by a hard frost. (I'm in SW Wales - normally not much frost but very windy and rainy)

I'd also wait until March and just prune the winter 'die-back'. Roses really don't take kindly to harsh pruning. Go easy on them.

It's only a few years since the RHS experiment on rose pruning - they cut one lot down with a hedgetrimmer to about 6 inches in early spring, and pruned the other lot correctly in early spring. Both grew and flowered just fine - but the correctly pruned ones maintained a better overall shape. You can be as tough as you like with roses, so long as you don't cut down to or beyond the graft point - but more vigorous roses will respond to that by being even more vigorous, which you might not want...