The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the Type 32 frigate programme is still in the concept phase, easing concerns over its potential cancellation.
However, the project is still in the concept phase and lacks a concrete timetable for design and procurement.
This update came in a written parliamentary response on October 9th, 2024, by Luke Pollard, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, to a query from Graeme Downie, Labour MP for Dunfermline and Dollar.
Pollard clarified that “The Type 32 frigate programme remains in the concept phase and has not yet reached the level of maturity to allow publication of a specific design and procurement timetable.”
This statement echoes previous comments from the MOD earlier this year. Back in May, James Cartlidge, then Minister of State for Defence, explained that the Type 32s were still too early in their development for an in-service date to be set, with the first vessels expected to join the fleet in the 2030s.
At that time, the project had only received around £4 million in concept funding, reflecting its early-stage nature.
The Type 32 frigate programme, initially announced under then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has been subject to ongoing speculation regarding its role within the Royal Navy’s future fleet.
Previous reporting highlighted that, despite a public commitment to the programme under the UK’s National Shipbuilding Strategy, the specifics of the project have remained vague, with discussions continuing over whether the new vessels would represent an entirely new design or be based on an additional batch of the existing Type 31 frigates.
With the strategic defence review on the horizon, I recently asked Pollard questions about the future of the UK’s naval programmes, including potential expansions beyond the Type 31. He acknowledged the substantial investment in shipbuilding infrastructure at Rosyth but remained measured in his response regarding future ship classes:
“As a new government, one of the first actions was the Prime Minister launching this strategic defence review. This is a serious review that recognises not only that the world is a more difficult place, and that there are new and evolving threats to the United Kingdom and our allies, but that after many years, especially with lots of gifting to our friends in Ukraine, which was exactly the right thing to do, the UK armed forces have far too many capability gaps.”
Pollard detailed the focus of the review and its expected timeline:
“So, what we’ve asked Lord Robertson to do is to conduct a defence review to not only analyse the threats we’re facing, but what kind of shape our forces will need to be. That review will report in the first half of next year. And in parallel to that, we’re working towards achieving 2.5% of GDP being spent on defence. That’ll be announced by the Chancellor at a fiscal event in the future.
Combined, what we’re doing is looking to reshape our armed forces to make sure that we can deter aggression towards the UK and our allies and defeat it if necessary. That means more investment in our people, that means more investment in kit and equipment, but it means making sure we have the right kit and equipment in the right places.
And frigates like this, the Type 31, the Type 26, will form the backbone of the Royal Navy. I’m absolutely confident that that will be a future that we can take real pride in. But I look forward to seeing the outcome of Lord Robertson’s defence review in the months ahead.”
Make more sense to increase the Type 31 order to say 8 ships and focus development on the Type 83. We need to ‘stop’ planning for two or three gold-plated something’s in ten or twenty years but get on and build “good enough” ships in sufficient numbers ‘now’.
Yes. I am sure they could tweak the design very slightly to be more drone/whatever friendly and churn out another batch of ‘,block 2’ type 31’s. Better still if the next batch could be seamlessly integrated I to the current 5 ship build program….
The best is the enemy of the good enough.
AA
“Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes.” – Robert Watson-Watt, Engineer and leader of the team that built the Chain Home radar stations of Battle of Britain fame.
He was seriously up against it time wise as the system was still being upgraded / completed in early September 1939..!
Cheers CR
I agree.
As little change as possible. That way the investment in T31 #1 (which is where the money and risk is spent) is leveraged.
T31B2 is my preference 3-5 ship order would make perfect sense.
I’d other then with Mk41 / NSM / Sea Ceptor from the off. Maybe an NS200 radar but otherwise leave well alone.
Fully agree.
That should be the philosophy going forward for more than just ships, though; no point in having everything shiny and gold plated, 20 years down the line, in pathetic numbers.
The medium helicopter concept comes to mind as well. Just buy Blackhawks, which will be cheaper and we could probably get a good amount of them, rather than 40-odd gold-plated flying money pits.
40???? I’d be thanking the Lord for 30.
25 or less is the current whispered number.
I agree.
It’s ridiculous that it’s gone down to so few.
I dread the next war we’re involved in!
Type 32 is to augment the T26 and T31 frigate fleet and presumably edge that fleet size above 13 hulls.
Why do you think it will be gold-plated and that there would only be two or three in the class?
If it is an evolution of T31, then that is a ‘no-frills’ frigate.
The Type 32 could be pretty much anything Graham – until more concrete information is available we simply won’t know.BAES have the ‘Adaptable Strike Frigate’ concept,the route to Gold Plating is certainly possible.
The issue is planning for something that’s gold plated and finding it cancelled. We need the results of the Type 32 concept phase to inform what we’ll actually get. We could have done that eighteen months ago. The RN/MOD seems to think that delaying decision making to the last possible second is a good idea, and that’s a real problem.
It’s already too late to develop a from-scratch design for T32 and maintain optimum production at Rosyth. We should still allow Babcock time to develop a T31 variant design that matches the required T32 philosophy.
Well it was getting quite concrete and over specified in its initial iterations.
The prices came back and there was a big gulp on RN/MoD land and the design went another iteration back to a stripped down version.
If you make T31 high spec with rafting and a big gun/VLS/high end radar and other toys it ends up costing T26 money.
Agreed. I think it will need to be cash limited. But concept shouldn’t be about specifying big gun and rafting. It needs to be about the reasons for those things, eg. NGFS and ASW if that’s what the Navy want. It’s then going to be up to manufacturers to offer solutions for the price. So instead of a big gun for NGFS, perhaps missiles, loitering munitions or drone swarms might be the proferred solution to achieve similar results. If the Navy ask for an onboard exquisite ASW, they might at least be offered an offboard UUV-based capability instead. It’s quite… Read more »
Hi Graham,
The concern many of us share is encapsulated in your ‘If’… I’ll give you another one. If it is an evolution of T31 why is it taking so long to make any decisions..?
Far too many cooks – ‘discussions’ indeed! Stick ’em in a room, lock the door and don’t let ’em until ‘decisions’ are made. Oh and tell ’em its a T31 as you lock the door! Grr!
Cheers CR
I actually think that at present the T32 is effectively in a holding pattern due to several uncertainties which preclude any fast decisions. The1st one is the SDR, until it lands there will be no large announcements, then there is the FSS and H&W followed by the one that directly effects Frigates. If BAe lands the contract for 5 T26 for Norway, what is the impact to the Frigate replacement plan and can those effects be mitigated. If I were to sum it up we are committed to 13 Frigates, everything else is a Big wet thumb in the wind… Read more »
It was designed and then costed and the cost was too much so another iteration.
100% agree
I agree. Much of MoDs budget is for a tomorrow that never comes, while the now is reduced to pay for it.
They should just make the Type 32 a Type 31, batch 2.
This increases the number of hulls for a reasonable price, and can be up-armed later.
Agree. Just continue with the existing hull and machinery but ‘tweak’ the weapons fit to provide different functionality. For instance, it would be relatively easy to ‘swap’ the 57 mm gun for the 5 inch being fitted to the Type 26 if that was wanted.
It wouldn’t be all that difficult to modify the stern and fit 2087 if an ASW bias was required but would prefer an order for more T26s for this job and that would keep BAe employed.
IH frigate (& Absalon) & it’s A140 updated equivalents have options that T31 has barely explored. Main gun, missiles, rafted machinery, hull & towed sonars, radars, etc etc. Both IH & Absalon can handle towed arrays. T31 is not a particularly good frigate. It has potential, but poor decision making by MoD & government (politicians) means no matter what they do, they are limited. Sticking to a fixed budget regardless of the outcome is not how government is meant to work. Everything is of course a judgement call, but it requires an ability to make an informed & coherent decision.… Read more »
Yes, more ships to spread and sustain a presence around the world and especially in keeping thevkey international trade routes open and safe. It’ll further boost UK industry and employment opportunities and hopefully attract some hard to get export orders.
Completely agree with the common consensus of others below. As much as I’d love to see the lovechild of a T26 and T31 I fear there would only be two possible outcomes, 1. Massive costs followed by only two examples actually ever making it to water (in 15 years time) or 2. Massive costs followed by the collapse of the project due to massive costs. We have several good cutting edge hull designs which we also now have a structured build process for both in place. Simply increase the numbers of T26 or T31 as required. KISS philosophy all the… Read more »
I would strongly suggest everyone stops dreaming about extra Frigates right now it’s completely pointless. If you haven’t already done so I urge you all to go onto Navy Lookout and read the article about RFA Fort Victoria and the state of the RFA.
Its official CSG25 will have 1 Tide class tanker and HMNoS Maude for support that’s it because out of 13 RFA ships we can’t crew even half of them.
The RFA thing is fixable for peanuts money – rounding error stuff.
That will get fixed I’m convinced of that.
So don’t let the RFA issue impact the warship issue.
As T32 won’t hit the water until 2032/3 at the earliest that does give 8+ years to fix training pipeline.
Most of training pipeline can be fixed by actually responding to some of the very good candidates who are ignored for months in the present chaotic system that appears to have been borrowed from NHS England.
The batch 2 Rivers have shown the benefits of smaller ships for some flag showing roles. At the cheaper end of the options, they could decide to sell off the remaining batch 1s and build some slightly more capable batch 3s. Perhaps an hangar for rwuas, upgunned to 57mm and with a self defence missile system, would be affordable while adding a more muscular presence.
If the RN can’t crew it’s current fleet, T32 is pointless. The biggest loss in recent years has been the MCM fleet. Replacing that capacity is important. Stirling Castle has shown limitations but it was cheap. If 3 even larger motherships are acquired, we will still have lost the secondary patrol capability of the minehunter fleet, something the bespoke design bought by Netherlands and Belgium retains. It might be more realistic to order an extra T31 though I would prefer to see any available llmoney spent on giving the existing ships some ASW capability. Currently there are 3 ship classes… Read more »
That is decade RN went down the ‘new shiny’ route because ‘it is cheaper’ before the technical side or costs were fully bottomed out.
The civilian motherships were a Sunak identified priority, if you recall. So RN went shopping as that made The Boss, at the time, happy.
The biggest capability gap is UK GDAB and the vulnerability to anything like the kind of cruise missile and ballistic missile assaults UK has seen.
Type 32 seems an option to do something. 5 hulls would leave 2/3 on station in the north sea, pushing out a radar and SAM umbrella.
Basic type 31 plus enhanced missile fit would suffice, ideally Aster or Camm MR if that is a 100km option. We really have too few Typhoon and sky sabre to even pretend that we can defend ourselves and 3 AEW aircraft is a bad joke.
I quite like this idea, doesn’t need to have amazing range either if it’s mostly for close to home or sailing with a CSG that has a tanker.
Go all in on Ballistic and Hypersonic defence capability, minimise the crew need, if there is spare space where you would normally put your helicopter hanger then use it for conventional air defence missiles and just have a pad for emergency use.
Would anyone disagree the smart move is Type 31 Batch 2? Lets not waste anymore money when we don’t need to (or have) it and a few tweaks on batch 2 makes total sense.
Please kit them out properly, with not for !!
In the unlikely event of this going ahead, expect the first ship to be up and ready by 2040 and the last by 2050. That’s being optimistic.
I think Boris misspoke and it became a thing; I honestly don’t think there was ever any real intent.
T26 and T31 are in progress. T83 is somewhere in the near distance. Why is another class needed?
Build more T31 so the numbers allow decent hull rotation so say another 4. Fit them out to a decent standard too perhaps?
Build another T26, perhaps work on an AAW variant too.
But T32? I don’t think so.
Everybody here knows that we need more escorts but also more fighter aircraft, Wedgetails, helicopters, tanks, tracked armoured vehicles, field artillery, UKAD missiles, UAVs, cyber resources and on and on. The bottom line is that the present equipment budget is way short across all 3 services and every decision is a hard choice between a host of competing claims. The strategic priorities in my book right now would be an increase ine number of fast jet combat aircraft, particularly interdiction, and a build up of the numbers and tracked equipment for the war fighting division, which is palpably deficient in… Read more »
RN do NOT needs type-32 frigates. More needed is,
T32 is very low priority… Just revive it on 2040s, for T31 replacements.