In a recent interview, Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard highlighted the significance of building British naval vessels domestically.
Speaking at Rosyth shipyar following the steel cutting for HMS Formidable, Pollard spoke to me about the strategic and economic value of the Type 31 frigate programme, and reaffirmed the government’s commitment to British shipbuilding.
Pollard described the Type 31 frigates as crucial assets for the Royal Navy, referring to them as “the new workhorses of the Royal Navy” that will play a key role in “protecting British interests, our sovereignty, and deterring aggression” around the globe.
He talked to me about the importance of this class of warships in sustaining the Royal Navy’s operational capacity, noting that the Type 31s, alongside the Type 26 frigates being constructed in Glasgow, will form a vital part of the fleet for decades. This programme, Pollard stressed, is not only about delivering advanced capabilities but also about fostering the skills needed to support the Royal Navy’s long-term needs.
Pollard also praised the role of the workforce and the new generation of apprentices engaged in the shipbuilding efforts. “Seeing them come together is really inspiring,” he said, pointing to the tangible benefits of developing skills in heavy engineering. He reiterated the government’s commitment to “making sure that we build British ships in British shipyards,” viewing it as a priority for the future of the UK’s naval and industrial capabilities.
The discussion turned to the broader context of the UK’s strategic defence review, currently led by Lord Robertson. Pollard highlighted that the review is aimed at reshaping the UK’s armed forces to address emerging global threats, while also maintaining critical maritime capabilities. He remarked, “Frigates like this, the Type 31, the Type 26, will form the backbone of the Royal Navy… I look forward to seeing the outcome of Lord Robertson’s defence review in the months ahead.”
This renewed focus on British shipbuilding comes at a time when the government is pursuing increased defence spending and addressing gaps left by recent military aid to Ukraine. The review, Pollard noted, would align with the government’s goal to achieve 2.5% of GDP in defence spending, alongside the Chancellor’s upcoming fiscal announcements.
Another Labour spin briefing, stating the bleeding obvious.
Labour have also confirmed the sky will not fall down under a Labour Govenment and will also guarantee British Ravens will continue to be based at the Tower of London…
I’d be amazed is Rosyth was allowed to either by Labour.
It is a shining example of what can be done to regenerate industrial Britain.
The unions would, rightly, be furious if Labour didn’t support a pipeline of work for an efficient modern yard.
This isn’t like propping up BSL in the 1970’s – you cannot compare the two. Here they are building needed ships at sensible prices.
We can now build a reasonable prices is because of competition, prior to this we ended up with overprice OPVs due to a monopoly that the government had actually created.
The OPVs where overpriced not because of the monopoly, but because of a deliberately inflated built time to keep the yard running. The Government wasn’t paying top price for OPV’s, it was paying for a yard not to go out of business.
…except the unit price of T31 is now double early estimates.
Cottect, this appears to be nothing more than Party Political spin.
You mean a politician put forward his party line? What? No way?
😂
Apart from we know the royal navy supply vessels though British are now to be built in Spain which isn’t British because this government won’t pledge to honour it’s debts
This government never signed the contract.
Who cares? Get real this is supposed to be a government, they cant hide behind ‘the others did it’ (same as Biden was stupid for saying Trump did it over Afghanistan, he was in charge at the time). Moreever the contract was to build the ships at Harlands (at least in part) win partnership with Spain, not to go destroying Harlands so your Spanish mates can do it all.
While this is a possibility, we don’t know it as a certainty.
We do, Harlands is being driven – deliberately – to the wall by our government who will close it to get rid of 500 jobs as part of their deliberate policy to destroy the country to make it easier for putin or xi to move in (God knows what they are being paid for this, but its like that former German chancellor deliberately making Germany dependent on russian oil and gas then taking his position on the board of the russian oil companies earning multi millions of pounds a year for having handed Germany to russia). The contract with the Spanish part of the partnership is being kept and ALL production is being moved there, probably using Spanish steel as well.
Honestly Dave, as far as the RFA’s go, I just want them delivered ( hopefully manned too!) on time and on budget.
Let the UK shipyards concentrate on RN requirements, as the RN is in the process of an almost complete fleet regeneration, there’s plenty of work..
If we insist on UK RFA production, they will be late and double the cost.
They will neither be late nor double the cost unless some bozo doesnt listen to the time it takes and the cost incurred. British workers are no more expensive than Spanish ones, the real extra cost is the stupidity of net zero which Germany have also embraced and has just cost them VW… and a couple of years ago cost them Opel. The problem with ‘net zero’ is that china builds a new coal fired power station every week while we double the price of energy and lose the steel industry, ship building industry, car manufacturing industry, mining industry (not allowed to mine coal or drill for oil, we have to import them from russia), even the computer industry becaues the data centres are too expensive, hell even offices are too expensive and ALL IT jobs, even call centres now are abroad where the energy is cheap.
I agree in principle Dave, but these ships are needed now.
Simple solution, you put the tender out to trade and may the best yard win. if UK yards are indeed competitive, they will win…
They already went through that, Harland and Wolff won, sadly the government seems unwilling to guarantee they will pay their bills. Its more than you make out, if we dont build the ships ourselves with our own steel and other components then when we need the skills – which will be next year at the latest – they will not be there, nor will the tools, docks or anything else.
We are fully maxed out with warship work, I haven’t really been keeping up with Harland, but if the government has to guarantee anything on their behalf, it sort of proves the point.
We need these ships and an RFA to actually them!!
Commercial ship yards have to be worldwide competitive, they will stand or fall on their own strengths or weaknesses.
I see little point funding Harland, just to get the RFA order fulfilled and probably just shutting it down again.
If the yards weren’t full of RN work however, I would strongly lobby for RFA work.
Well given how little we are actually doing that says we urgently need more steel mills, more steel furnaces, more yards and more workers… it doesnt mean we should send the work abroad.
That takes round in a circle Dave…
If a viable commercial enterprise exists, then business will take it on, if not, they won’t.
If the Govenment of the day have to under write it and it’s not critical to National Security, then it’s sadly probably not viable.
Labour are already set to recreate BR, with all the late dirty old trains, surly staff and stale sandwiches that will inevitably come along with it again.
We already can’t afford their socalist nonsense, so a qusi nationised steel and ship building industry is out of the question.
So we are a maritime nation, we need the royal navy to guarantee food supplies especially now we have covered half the productive farms with housing and the other half with solar panels (like the stupidity in Cambridgeshire/Suffolk being built despite thousands of acres of factories and offices).
Stupidly we appear unable to consider that ships need armaments and more over fuel because stupidly we didnt build nuclear powered ships. So the provision of resupply verssels is an absolute mandatory thing for our country in war, and we are in war right now, so it is strategic that we build ships, thus we make steel, armaments, guns, missiles, the silicon and boards to construct them, lorries to transport things et al
And I wish they would commit to using british steel and equipment
British ships built from British steel!
Wait one………..
I know this isn’t defence related but why are 2 new ferries for the Scilly isles being built in Vietnam? Westminster really doesn’t care about British shipbuilding. British ships in British yards? If they cared they would have underwritten the loan to Harland and Wolff. So they could build the ships that they ordered! What a c*ck up! It’s all b*llocks!
Uk Shipyards and building Ferries don’t make a good mix. 😯
yes they do, but like anything else a level of practice is required. We have lost a generation or two at least of people with the very capabilities to build ships, make steel, create engines and wire it all together that we clearly and desperately need. Russia will win in Ukraine and when it does will move against the rest of europe. China is moving against the phillipines now and surrounding taiwan, there is going to be war there within a year and iran is moving in the middle east, we need the ships and skills now – in fact had the conservatives had an ounce of nouce we would have been creating it 10 years ago while we had a little time.
Because Labour don’t care about yards in areas that don’t return Labour MPs. Appledore could and should build the Scilly Isles ferry and cargo ship. Belfast could and should be building the solid support RFA ships in their entirety. Labour is a Scottish party and they know it.
A Scottish party?? Are you serious? They’re an English registered party that doesn’t give a sh*t for Scots.
100%
Can’t win an election in England though…🤔
38 Scottish MP’s in labour and they have a majority of 174.
Yet they never win without Scotland. Last election was simply the tories being unelectable, treasonous trash.
Well said!!!
You my friend are absolutely correct. Whoever signed of this deal for Vietnam, needs to have their bank accounts forensically checked. Some shady dealings are afoot! Never trust a politician, especially a Labour Party one!
Correct, ‘oh its cheaper’…. what when we havent a shipyard left to build ships to fight the russians or Trump led yanks? When we havent any ships to keep the falklands or even gibraltar? Is it really cheaper then? Is it even cheaper to pay unemployment ot British workers while paying foreign workers to do their jobs? I dont think so, in fact it is simple to prove it isnt. But the civil service want to crush Britain and give the pieces to their mates in the kremlin
If they are Royal Navy combat ships, then that have to be built in the UK – that’s just the way it is. Labour doesn’t have a say on the matter.
Better not tell him about FSS
Don’t mention FSS, I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it🤣🤣🤣😂😂
Somebody lite the fuse??? Fsssss……
🕳️🙃Btth.
Will Harland and Wolfe ?, or has monies been diverted too more needed things ,like Green projects in Africa .Will wait until after the Budget. Oh and what about the steel required ,as port Talbot isn’t a place miliband finds Green .
And how much was wasted on the high speed choo choo? 😳. Who’s coffers did that end up in? 🕳️🙃Btth.
Had too pay for the archeology before laying the line 🙄 😒 😕 😐 trowels and spades cost a pretty penny
No no Tommo, Coffers not Coffins! Ha. Not forgetting archaeologists half time pints down the pub. 🤤🤫🙃🕳️Btth.
Most of the money spaffed was on tunnelling through nice Tory areas so as not to upset the locals..if they had just been able to build a nice straight track with no tunnels it would have not cost as much….billions spaffed for the NIMBYs.
Such a pity the old Great Central Line was closed, but the old alignment could have been reclaimed, but could it have been too simple a solution? Bureaucracy tends to to make even the simplist project complex and more complex, whether building ferries or railways
The usual announcement of the obvious regards warships.
Tories with their endless re announcements of existing were no different.
How about just getting on and building FSS abroad regardless and let our own yards increase the number of escorts? Otherwise we may be here in 2040 and the RN will still have not have a replacement for the Forts.
We have spent what seems like a decade talking, not doing.
My best mates cousin was a last year electrician apprentice working on the Forts and the Upholders …. he’s now a grandad…
Both classes still in service, very telling of both UK and Canadian procurement.
I wouldn’t believe a Labour Minister if he said it was daylight at 11am in the morning. I would still have to check. These people are of sound-bites, not substance.
Budgets are getting cut in other areas of our National Security Infrastructure while this lot rearrange the deckchairs claiming they are investing and guaranteeing projects have cast iron guarantees.
Years ago, the press would have done a proper job and brought it to the country’s attention. Not so today. Shrinkage in every branch of our military, civil defence and security infrastructure is being hidden by Labour.
Very well put. We are being spun a yarn by every PM and cabinet since WWII, and yet we seem to believe the next one will make things better, but they never do! They only care about things during a 5 year term. Defence is one area that requires a 20 year plan, with lots of forward planning and budgetting set aside. They will never do it. Nor will the Tories. Neither party are here for our benefit. They only look after themselves!
So I guess Harland and Wolff in northern Ireland is not British and the royal navy supply vessels are not British? If they were them they wouldn’t be built in Spain because the British government can’t even pledge to honour is debts. This is doublespeak like the stuff mentioned in Orwells 1984
??? Beats me, I think??? 🕳️🙃Btth.
Thats allwell and good but we no longer have steel manufacturing in this country , so Chinese or Indian steel it is how ironic that we depend on china for our steel to build our ships and tanks and fighter jets , then the government tells us china is the biggest threat to our peace and stability, can anyone out there please explain this situation as i find it mind blowing
Most comes from Germany.
Yes we do..Scunthorpe steel works still produce virgin steel.
It’s bloody ridicules we can’t make our own steel no more .I mean what Country kicks it’s self in the Nuts 🙄
How about British ships in British shipyards with British steel, oh no, we can no longer make British steel?!!!!
Ummm we can.
For the moment maybe but don’t hold your breath .
As Jonathan said, Port Talbot wasn’t the only steel producer. There’s still Scunthorpe
… talk is cheap.
….Where are the additional squadron batch orders (plurals intended…and unfortunately rhetorical).
If the Government are serious about British shipyards, jobs and RN resilience they need to double the Type 31 class now to ensure FF numbers return to the levels of 2010 and then treble them to bring RN number back numbers to 2004 levels. That way they encourage partner nations that the UK is serious about defence and that the UK can deliver a good product. You must export ships and S/Ms if you wish cost to reduce, skill sets, design and capacity to improve.
Building warships in British yards is nothing new, but probably worth restating. Its for him more about British jobs in deprived areas than national security and guarantee of facilities for repairs and overhauls and supply of spare parts etc
Why is there no similar commitment for army equipment and ammunition to be home-sourced?
Once upon a time, we had 26 Leander class frigates, 6 type 21s along with countless tribals, Whitby’s and the like, that’s just frigates. I believe 9 county class destroyers or type 42s, three carriers and 13 nuclear boats. What we boast now is a national shame.
Definitely no type 32s then
UkDefencejournal will have to offshore in 10 years as there won’t be any naval news worth reporting in these waters by then
Fantastic news and great for the local people. Let’s have a new era of ship building in Britain especially on the river TYNE.
The government has published its green paper on industrial strategy. Defence is one of the industry sectors identified along with life sciences, green technologies, finance etc
/www.gov.uk/government/news/industrial-strategy-launch-to-hardwire-stability-for-investors