New British assault ships to enter service in 2030s

The first ship of the planned joint Anglo-Dutch amphibious fleet is intended to enter service in the 2030s, Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard has told the House of Commons.

The timeline came in answer to a topical question from Alex Ballinger, the Labour MP for Halesowen and a former Royal Marine who spent two years working alongside the Dutch marines, who welcomed the cooperation with the Netherlands in the Defence Investment Plan and asked when amphibious ships would be operational given that HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark are out of service.

“After the last Government tied up HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, never planning to send them to sea again, this Labour Government are bringing back amphibious ships,” Pollard said. “We are working with the Netherlands to develop a joint capability, and our ambition is for the first ship to enter service in the 2030s.”

The exchange puts a first, if broad, date on the amphibious commitment in the Defence Investment Plan, which dropped the Royal Navy’s planned Multi-Role Strike Ship in favour of UK participation in the Netherlands-led Amphibious Transport Ship programme. The plan stated that the MRSS “was too complex and did not reflect the UK Commando Force we are now pursuing,” with the department pivoting to explore opportunities with the Dutch programme and casting the move as investment in new amphibious shipping to create a combined fleet with the Netherlands, backed by £250 million for amphibious shipping in the plan.

What do we know about the new Amphibious Transport Ships?

• 8 ships in total
• 4 for the Royal Navy
• 4 for the Royal Netherlands Navy
• £2.4 billion programme
• 160 metres long
• 15,000 tonnes displacement
• Designed to carry troops, vehicles, equipment and drones
• Flight decks able to operate current and future long-range drones
• Ships to be built in UK shipyards
• Expected to support hundreds of skilled UK jobs

The MRSS had been intended as a class of up to six large vessels of between 25,000 and 40,000 tonnes, replacing the Albion-class landing platform docks, the three Bay-class landing ships and RFA Argus, with the first hull expected in the early 2030s. Its cancellation leaves the Dutch Amphibious Transport Ship as the route back to a dedicated amphibious fleet, a considerably smaller class that the Netherlands has been developing since 2024 to replace its two Rotterdam-class landing platform docks and Holland-class patrol vessels, with Dutch deliveries planned from 2032.

A joint design was first pursued under Project Catherina, the memorandum signed in 2023 on the fiftieth anniversary of the UK-Netherlands Amphibious Force, before being set aside in 2024 when the two nations judged their requirements and budgets too divergent for a single hull, a position the Defence Investment Plan has now reversed in favour of the Dutch design philosophy.

The Royal Navy has had no dedicated amphibious assault ship since Albion and Bulwark were retired in late 2024, having been held at reduced readiness for years amid crewing shortages, with both ships subsequently sold to Brazil. The gap has left the forward-deployed Commando Force dependent on allied shipping or airlift to move at scale, a shortfall noted in analysis of this year’s Arctic deployments, and Pollard’s 2030s ambition implies the gap will persist for several more years at least.