The First Sea Lord, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, visited Babcock International’s Devonport site to view work underway in support of Royal Navy submarine availability and operational readiness, the company stated.
The visit covered programmes and facilities across the site, with time also spent alongside teams from the wider Naval Base. Babcock said the visit reflected “the collaborative environment that underpins delivery” at Devonport, bringing together its Major Nuclear Capital Programmes and Naval Nuclear business.
The company described its approach as centred on lifetime engineering, stating the work “connects the infrastructure we deliver on land with the maintenance and availability of submarines at sea.” Babcock added that its teams are engaged in work spanning “complex maintenance to once-in-a-generation infrastructure investment” and characterised its role as being “at the heart of ensuring the UK’s submarine fleet remains mission-ready, now and for the future.”
The visit comes at a period of considerable focus on the health of the UK’s submarine enterprise. Astute-class SSN availability remained low throughout 2025, with the five boats managing a total of around 300 days at sea between them. The First Sea Lord stated in December 2025 that the long-standing advantage enjoyed by allied forces in the Atlantic is at risk, adding that the margin is now narrow.
Devonport sits at the heart of efforts to address those pressures as it is the UK’s largest naval base and the sole site for the deep maintenance and refit of the Royal Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines, with thousands of engineers, technicians and defence specialists working daily to maintain critical assets and ensure the fleet is ready to deploy. Following the completion of the five-year Future Maritime Support Programme contract on 31 March 2026, Babcock agreed a six-month bridging agreement with the Ministry of Defence to maintain continuity of naval base and nuclear submarine fleet support services, with a new long-term agreement reported to be in the latter stages of negotiation.
A £750 million contract awarded to Babcock covers the delivery of substantial upgrades to existing infrastructure, including a new dock, logistics facilities and modern support buildings, enabling the ongoing delivery of base maintenance periods and deep maintenance projects for current and future classes of submarine, including nuclear defuel.
A separate £200 million refurbishment of 9 Dock, completed in 2024, was aimed at enhancing the Royal Navy’s ability to maintain the Vanguard-class submarines that form the backbone of the UK’s Continuous-At-Sea Nuclear Deterrent.
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It’s unfortunate this work ever went to Devenport, back in the 1990’s we spent hundreds of millions for a purpose built dry docks facility at Rosyth to look after all the nuclear submarines, The John Major government decided to re tender the work to Devenport years after the contract had been signed and hundreds of millions had already been spent at rosyth building the new dry docks. All to prop up a couple of marginal Tory constituencies near Plymouth.
The end result was the Tories were whiped out completely in Scotland in 1997 and Devonport couldn’t do the job for the money they bid. The government ended up spending hundreds of millions more and still ended up with the old congested dock we are using now. Devenport eventually went bust anyway and Babcock which ran Rosyth ended up taking over Devenport as well.
This is along with the Cameron governments decision to extend the Vanguard bots well past their design life with no infrastructure to do it is the reason we are in such a mess today.
David Cameron….the gift that keeps on giving.
Wasn’t the Trident decision postponed because the Lib Dems threatened to bring down the coalition because of it?
The compromise was to push the main gate decision until after the 2015 election. People often forget how much the LD put the handbrakes on Defence as part of that coalition. They also put decisions made by Labour but enacted by the coalition (retirement of Harrier) at their hands.
The worst decision by that government though was the mass redundancy programme of the Army. It has not recovered from it.
Yes the Lib Dems were a big reason behind it as was Osbourne’s “austerity” that cut nothing in government except defence but it was all the Cameron government. He choose to work with the Liberals Democrats
Actually Jim, Defence got off “lightly” in Austerity seeing a roughly 10% cut. NHS was ringfenced, but most other departments saw more like 20%.
Pension were gold plated during the time, education and health ring fenced, foreign aid budget increased by 40% in real terms. Benefits went up. Infrastructure spending went up, debt interest spending ballooned. Defence was cut from 2.7% of GDP to 2.01% of GDP.
Not sure where you get your 10% figure from i am guessing nominal terms?
10% of the operational budget of the MOD was cut, Jim. Other departments sat at 20% except for the NHS.
That’s a relevant statistic because it really pertains to people’s jobs and delivery of capability.
That’s why, for example, there was a huge cut in front line policing.
Point out.. Austerities Architect was Alistair Darling..!! The Tories Simply Tried to Speed up the Plan by a Year with Serious Consequences.!..With the Help of the The Lib Dems Who pushed Defence Cuts, !..All in All a Team Effort..
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Army cuts were about 20000 in the long term. Also 5000 posts also went in the Navy ( and surprise, surprise a couple of years later we couldn’t man the ships we had )
Another load of complete bollox. Are you on drugs again?
As I worked in Rosyth whilst they were building the “hole in the ground” it is unbelievable that this purpose built facility has been allowed to disintegrate to it’s current state.
It’s heartbreaking for me personally as I still see it regularly now I’m retired as it’s one of my regular walks.
Worse yet the MoD has to keep spending money on it to stop the hole in the ground collapsing.
The biggest problems any country suffers with are career politicians. No one should be allowed anywhere near political positions without doing a job in the real world away from politics, preferably in a business or managerial position. Career politicians are clueless.
You forgot serving in the armed forces for at least seven years as a legal requirement
In all fairness, I know plenty of people who served 7 years or more that I wouldn’t allow to run a bath, never mind a country 😂
I also know many who served their 4 years minimum who I still trust implicitly who went on to incredible things.
In reality, political ability and military service are not the same skill set. There are hugely capable soldiers who sink in business too. And I’m sure there are hugely successful businessmen who would be terrible political leaders
In all fairness, I know plenty of people who served 7 years or more that I wouldn’t allow to run a bath, never mind a country 😂
I also know many who served their 4 years minimum who I still trust implicitly who went on to incredible things.
In reality, political ability and military service are not the same skill set. There are hugely capable soldiers who sink in business too. And I’m sure there are hugely successful businessmen who would be terrible political leaders
Last I heard they were going to turn the Area into a Container Port….???