Inflation is pushing up the cost of the Type 31 frigate programme across labour and the wider supply chain, and the Ministry of Defence is assessing what that does to the affordability of the programme as a whole, according to an answer given in Parliament.
Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative member for Huntingdon, had asked ministers to set out which areas of the programme are under inflationary pressure, following up an answer given on 6 October.
Luke Pollard, Minister of State for Defence Readiness and Industry, said: “The Type 31 programme is experiencing inflationary pressures across a number of areas, including labour and the wider supply chain. The Ministry of Defence continues to assess the effect of these pressures on the programme and its overall affordability.”
Babcock is building five Type 31 frigates at Rosyth under a contract awarded in 2019 worth around £1.25 billion, based on the Iver Huitfeldt design, with the first of class named HMS Venturer. The programme supports around two and a half thousand skilled jobs across Scotland and the wider United Kingdom supply chain, including four hundred apprenticeships.
Ministers told Parliament earlier this month that they were monitoring the schedule for the class alongside Babcock. Norway has since selected the Type 26 design for its own frigate programme, and the Defence Investment Plan sets out further orders for crewed warships alongside the hybrid Navy of uncrewed and autonomous systems.
Its not totally surprising. Any programme that kicked off before 2020 has had a lot of unknown risks to deal with. COVID, Ukraine war, Iran war. Then the partial unknowns of brexit. Add to this being the first ship babcock has really built themselves. Then there seems to bit senior management churn too going on too.
Hi folks hope all is well.
This all sounds like an excuse to cut the number of the typ. And at the same time we have the constant drone of we are facing a war with Russia from the very same government that will find any reason to cut the defence budget.
I don’t understand how France has a smaller defence budget and gets more for it’s defence? What on earth is our MOD doing with our money? How on earth can this inept woeful government expect the public to take defence seriously and ask us to step up if we need to? I get so fed up with the negative news about our military and the issues that apper to blight it. Sorry for the rant people
Cheers
George
Welcome to the rant party George. You did better then i managed last week at holding back.
The length of time these new ships are taking to build , they will probably take as much time again in refit as soon as launched to upgrade them as will be out of date in launch
No it doesn’t, you do know what inflation is right?
‘…..the very same government that will find any reason to cut the defence budget’
Nobody is cutting the defence budget. It is rising by £10bn and hopefully by £15bn at the budget.
If the previous governments had not slashed defence spending to the bone over the previous 14 years, leaving us with a pile of elderly, clapped-out and gapped kit, £15bn would put us on the front foot. But instead, it has to go to fixing wages, service housing, base facilities, armament plants and the neglected, run down defence nuclear enterprise. So trying to acquire new platforms and weapons is going.to be a long and very costly exercise.
Moral is that you can’t take a 14-year holiday on defence spending without very detelrous results on military equipment and preparedness. For the Tories to now be shouting about the need for 3%, without a hint of shame or remorse, should be treated with the contempt such political chicanery deserves.
Thank you autocorrect but the word really is ‘deleterious’…
So we can now expect further “soft” annoucements related to the affordability of the prorgram over the coming months, before a formal cut/sale of the Type 31 fleet.
For what its worth, i’m going for a final Hull number of 3…….any takers?
Given four are currently under construction, that’d be surprising.