The life extension programme for HMS Iron Duke cost £102.9 million and ran for 208 weeks between May 2019 and May 2023, and a further £4.7 million was spent on a towed sonar array conversion that was then cancelled, according to written evidence submitted to the Defence Committee.
The figures were supplied by the Ministry of Defence in answer to follow-up questions from the committee’s High North inquiry, after members pressed the Minister during oral evidence on 15 July. The committee asked for the precise money spent on the deep maintenance of Iron Duke and HMS Richmond, and for the reason it was not then judged cost-effective to keep either in service.
One of the questions put to the Minister ran: “We spent over £100 million on refitting Iron Duke a small number of years ago. In fact, I think the refit took longer than the payback of service. What is the precise reason that HMS Iron Duke was taken out of service?”
A second asked: “We were going to fit a towed sonar array to Iron Duke as well. That plan was started and then abandoned. Could you tell the Committee how much money was spent on that plan?”
The department set out the costs, dates and durations of the life extension programmes for both ships. HMS Iron Duke’s ran to £102.9 million from May 2019 to May 2023. HMS Richmond’s cost £72.0 million and ran for 126 weeks from October 2017 to June 2020.
On why Iron Duke went, the department said: “HMS Iron Duke was taken out of service because the ship required significant additional structural repairs and investment which could not be justified given its remaining service life and the availability of other frigates to meet operational requirements.”
On the abandoned sonar conversion, it said: “The Ministry of Defence keeps all capability programmes under regular review to ensure they remain affordable, deliver value for money, and align with operational priorities. The decision to cancel the Iron Duke conversion programme was based on a comprehensive assessment. Given the platform’s remaining service life, the time required to complete the conversion, and competing operational priorities, the benefits of proceeding did not justify the additional cost or extended period out of service. Resources were therefore re-prioritised to deliver greater operational effect. Approximately £4.7 million was spent before the conversion was cancelled.”
On Richmond, the department said: “HMS Richmond was found to require a major refit to address structural defects. This would have produced limited availability before her planned out of service date. Focussing investment and resources on sustaining the remaining Type 23 frigates and supporting the entry to service of the Type 26 and Type 31 frigates was deemed better value for money.”
Iron Duke came out of Devonport in 2023 after four years alongside, emerging with new diesel generators, upgraded Sea Ceptor and Artisan radar, and she was withdrawn in 2025 along with Richmond. The dates bear out the point the committee put to the Minister. Her life extension ran for 208 weeks and she gave the fleet about half that in sea service before coming off the operational list.
The towed array conversion would have turned Iron Duke from a general purpose Type 23 into a towed array frigate, the variant that carries Sonar 2087 and does the deep anti-submarine work in the Greenland Iceland United Kingdom gap. The Royal Navy has been short of towed array hulls for years, with the general purpose ships retired first and the specialist ones held on while Type 26 is built, so converting one was a way of propping up the number before the new class arrives.
Both ships went as part of the equipment reductions that have taken the frigate force down while the Type 26 and Type 31 programmes run. The first of class in both programmes, Glasgow on the Clyde and Venturer at Rosyth, are still working towards the point at which they can take on the tasks the departing Type 23s were doing.
MOD official policy, spend money first ask questions later.
What Britain seems to do best.!.Waste Money.!.
That’s What worries me about this Fatastic New Hybrid World the MOD spouts on About..!
It’s the problem with Britain in a nutshell.
The system says the money must be spent, so the money was spent. The system then said the ship must be scrapped, so the system was scrapped.
There is no-one at the wheel.
This is the predictable result of backing the RN into a desperate hull availability crisis. They spend what they must to keep what few options they have available to them – even though the investments were hideously inefficient. This is an act of desperation over incompetence.
This is not the fault of the MOD, but of multiple Govts destroying the mass of the surface fleet.
How 100M is spent in a refit and then only later it is discovered it needs a “structural” refit?
My thoughts exactly. But perhaps they knew all along, but as Jay said, maybe they were backed into a corner.
Exactly. I’d certainly like to see the explanation for this. You cannot ask for more, while spaffing it up the wall.
You will never get an honest answer, as that would either stitch up current senior people in the MOD, ship yards or government. Realistically someone should have been aware of this and flagged it or someone ignored the warning. Either way someone wasted public money.
Agree . Every Defence budget is met with defence spending cuts a year later . Even this year it is dubious if defence spending has increased . And what no new hulls in 16 yrs for frigste or destroyers . Type23 frigates last built around year 2000 and the last destroyer t45 around 2010 . A whole generation of ships not built between the current build program . Still spending 200million on a refurbished ship is cheaper than no ship which is the case today .
This kind of money wasting could have bought a fair chunk of another T31.
True, but not for another 7 years. I think the need was for ships then not in the 2030s
Let’s hope they’re not underdoing it again with ship numbers. Still think it’ll be prudent to have a few more GP T31s, to be able to spread and sustain presence, have a buffer and back up to free up the T45/T26 and OPVs. The Multi-role naval platform variant looked very useful and not too over the top. You can still have your drone ships but not sure they’ll work as well with long deployments, port to port visits, humanitarian relief, supporting helo ops, and kind of send a different type of message in terms of “flying the flag”.
The amount spent LIFEXing T23s would have increased T31 to 8 and fitted Mk41 to those three.
Same as refitting T boats due to Astute slow swallowed funds for shore side works and spares.
Spend to save has been turned on its head here….
Just sometimes when you look at another cut program, or cost overrun, or another delayed project in building a fu***** simple AFV for example, one wonders whether sabotage is actually an MOD agenda. The parlous state of our readiness across the board for the conflict that is coming is truly bordering on treasonable negligence.
‘The Defence of the Realm’ seems to be beyond the understanding of any government, red or blue. A huge defence budget that delivers little front line capability, and less bang for our buck than most. Still, social security before national security eh? You have it there fron the horse’s mouth.
Amen. All the time and money we spend on just keeping things effectively mothballed is insane.
We’re becoming like the Imperium of Man: acting on timescales that just go on and on, slaves to processes that don’t work and never have done, terrified of innovation and progress, not really understanding why we do it this way but unable to change it for fear of staring a witch hunt.
I think you should look into the state of education political complex for an answer to that.
Sincere question looking for sincere answers: why does it cost this much money and take this many weeks?
I’m guessing there’s a correlation between the two. Why can’t the work be done faster?
I mean there’s obviously no rush, the world is calm and peaceful at the moment, certainly no need to up our game at all 🤔
They should’ve just built, some smaller less capable, river type patrol vessels to fill in the gaps for now, which would need them with a useful resource for afterwards for presence if not war fighting.
Hard to think of something less capable than a River.
It is absolutely not a war fighter but a flag waving place holder. Essential for command experience and presence.
The problem is that if you make a slightly better River with TAS then ‘you have new ships you don’t need as many frigates’ starts up.
Re: …a slightly better River…that is far too close to the truth. I can hear it now.
Buy two or three of the Irish OPV…theres some laying unused???
Add better radar. Job done for a bit more ” presence ”
AA
The 50s would need structural work for fitting a radar as their masts aren’t meant for it, and the 60s are in use, and are already heading in for their own refits.Add in entirely different supply chains, no CMS, commercial grade design and build…
Yeah not sure how you figure that works.
The folly of pseudo money saving. Rather than wasting entirely this money(it goes somewhere) with nothing produced to enhance or maintain UK forces, it would’ve been far more sensible to fund accelerated building of the T26/T31 programs. The insane way we’ve proceeded neither maintained old assets in the fleet nor provided faster or increased new vessels so desperately needed. But that money has gone into a lot of fat cat pockets. Almost as though that’s the intent. We demonise the low paid, people on benefits, people fleeing persecution who are simply trying to survive, but the real top tier leeches are these super rich exploiting the public purse for their selfish greedy ends.
So ships made of steel sitting in salt water need repairs, amazing other countries get on and repair there’s and have a navy rather than half a training flotilla. Tune we built a navy and that starts by not scrapping ships, especially not scrapping in turkey
T23 were built with every expense spared down to an 18yr life span.
Criminal stupidity on the part of Government and the senior leadership of the RN, who, it seems, never advocate for their Service at Whitehall.
I suspect the true story is rather more nuanced than the “expert” opinions here.