The remaining economic value written down when the Royal Navy’s two landing platform docks left service was about £195 million for HMS Albion and £233 million for HMS Bulwark, a combined figure of roughly £428 million, according to an answer given in Parliament.
Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative member for Huntingdon, asked for a breakdown of the remaining economic value of each Albion class vessel at the time of the write-down recorded on page 139 of the department’s Annual Report and Accounts for 2024-25, published on 4 November 2025.
Luke Pollard, the Minister of State for Defence, said: “The remaining economic value written down was approximately £195.3 million for HMS Albion and £233.2 million for HMS Bulwark. The hon. Gentleman will know that this is the write down value and not a cost or payment made from the Defence budget.”
A write-down is the accounting recognition that an asset the department still carried on its books no longer has the service life it was assumed to have, and no money moves when it happens. The figure measures what the Treasury’s accounts said the ships were still worth on the day the decision was taken to stop using them.
Bulwark carrying a higher residual value than Albion follows from her refit history, since she had been in extended readiness and had received investment that Albion’s longer operational run had already consumed. Both ships were commissioned in the early 2000s, Albion in 2003 and Bulwark in 2005, and both were designed for a service life running towards 2033 and 2034.
The withdrawal came in the fleet decisions announced in late 2024, when the department confirmed that the two assault ships would go alongside a frigate and other units, and this publication reported at the time that the Albion class assault ships and a frigate were to be scrapped. The crews were reassigned across the fleet in the months that followed.
