The future of two of the Royal Navy’s front-line warships, HMS Argyll and HMS Westminster, remains shrouded in uncertainty.
Recent inquiries into the status and operational plans for these ships have been met with vague responses, underscoring a potentially precarious future for the ageing frigates.
HMS Westminster, despite spending 90 days at sea in 2022 and entering a planned two-year refit to extend its service life until the late 2020s, the ship’s future was thrown into doubt in May 2023. Reports indicated that the refit was suspended due to the vessel’s deteriorating material condition. By January 2024, speculation arose that Westminster might be decommissioned prematurely, with its crew potentially being reassigned to a new Type 26 frigate.
Meanwhile, HMS Argyll, the longest-serving Type 23 Frigate in the Royal Navy, has faced its own set of challenges. After entering dry dock at the Frigate Support Centre in May 2022 for a post-LIFEX upkeep expected to be completed by summer 2023, the project hit a snag. Reports in early 2024 suggested that despite the vessel being undocked and Babcock’s assurances that the upkeep project was ongoing, the frigate might not return to service, primarily due to personnel shortages.
In response to a parliamentary question by Luke Pollard MP, Shadow Minister for Defence, regarding the operational future of these vessels, James Cartlidge MP, Minister of State at the MOD, provided a non-committal answer.
He emphasised the broader strategy of managing the transition from the current fleet to the upcoming vessels, focusing on maintaining operational commitments and ensuring value for money. However, he did not confirm specific plans for HMS Argyll and HMS Westminster, instead noting the need for “tough but necessary decisions” in the future.
Razor blades
I wouldn’t do that, they will have to sent back to Babcock’s to resharpened at a cost of 50 Millon every couple of years!! If releasing crew from the mothballed ( sorry just taking a ‘sabbatical’, definitely not mothballed)) LPD’s isn’t enough to get Argyll up and running, then things really are very bad!! The damage done to to our armed forces by both parties since 1991 is jaw dropping, this is just yet another symptom. You do have to point out the Tories in particular have caused massive damage to to the armed forces in their 14 years on… Read more »
The thing is it’s the whole political system. Who ever end up in power is because they promised slightly more than the opposition, so to state Tories are bad for defence is 100% correct, but if the oppositions manifesto was brimming with massive defence investment your criticism would be well placed but it wasn’t. So you can blame both parties, Tories may have smashed the windows but the baseball bat was gleefully handed to them buy Labour.
True….
You can’t get past Cameron’s 2010 cuts though, investment was reduced substantially and the armed forces slashed in size in a recklessly dangerous way.
It stands out as an act of defence vandalism without parallel since the great reductions of the 1957 white paper….
May be but still if we voted in Labour in 2010 would it have been any different. The country was in a mess and NHS and other departments has trumped Defence in the eyes of both parties for 2 decades and more. And had JC won any previous defence cuts would have looked like a skim off the top by comparison. Quite how Labour let him even stand was beyond me, and it gave the Tories no desire to look at defence seriously. As someone who dislikes both parties I really don’t see much difference tbh. The only reason why… Read more »
I totally agree, the current mob are useless, Starmer is a snake oil salesman who will promise anything to get elected.
These won’t be any difference between them, except Labour will likely take more money off hard working successful folks, like they always do….
We will never know but one indication is the percentage of gdp figure was higher under labour than the Conservatives even if the 2030 target was met.
But mr runaway was well in cahoots with his useless chancellor hit the poor the sick the mod and the NHS to quote the pillock (I believe)a quote he still uses today
Apparently Cameron and his Chancellor wanted to cut much further in 2010 with even greater manpower cuts and cancellation of the carrier project.
Morning Graham, apparently so….
The damage this mob have done to defence in 14 years is absolutely horrendous, we all know that 2.5% on defence, only puts us back to 2010 levels anyway….
“War footing”, does anyone actually swallow this crap??
Labour will place defence as a very low priority, as an example, this mornings announcement of nationalising the Rail network alone will end up costing many billions in onward investment…
BR was an absolute S#it show, as anyone old enough to remember using it will confirm, this will simply be s#it show Mk2!
I’m bloody glad I pulled my private pension early, as talk of nationalisation makes the markets very uneasy, bad luck if your pension fund happens to have any shares in any of the private rail companies …. You can guess what those share prices are about to do!!
‘War footing’. This country is absolutely not on a war footing and will not transition to that anytime soon. The best way to describe the ‘feel’ of a nation being on a war footing is to recall the Covid pandemic. Some Industry switched to making CPAP machines, PPE was bought quickly for billions of pounds. Billions spent in other areas – infrastructure (Nightingale hospitals), furlough payments. The NHS was on the verge of being overwhelmed. Daily briefings from ‘the Three Wise Men’ in a briefing room at No10. Multiple COBRA meetings. People fearful for their lives and their well being.… Read more »
John, that is total bollocks. Under John Reid 2 and sectorisation, elements of rail were in profit. Speedlink had been set up to fail; it did Containers were a growth sector they just needed infill electrification… and even today, they still do… BR was on its way to eliminating subsidy; then Major had a spunktasm over Edwina and we have the foxtrot uniform system we have now. 7 companies are DOR, effectively nationalised. Just let the other contracts run out and start re-creating a harmonised fleet(s) for South East, Counties and Intercity rather the enormous number of multispectral clad Classes… Read more »
Exactly. BR was getting better with minimal subsidy (all major Euro rail networks have subsidy anyway), and a proper rolling stock strategy that meant fleets were replaced and upgraded systematically and British industry did the lion’s share of the work. The current system is so disjointed and un-planned, and so much money goes to lawyers and consultants that any “private sector innovation” get’s wiped out in financial terms, and the rail industry has been decimated. Gradual nationalisation, retaining elements of private sector involvement but letting them plan and invest for the long-term with a clear strategy set by UK gov… Read more »
Undoubtedley true. Cameron was clueless about defence but Clegg had a big paw in it as well. Once SDR 2010 got going there was no way back for the army as evidenced today.
The damage was extensive and it’s aftershocks still rumble on…
Once you cut capability and mass, it takes years to rebuild it….
Answer the statements on Rail. Many of us are old enough to remember the ’70s through the ’80s giving rise to the transformation in the early ’90s. Every TOC contract will end. They get nationalised, zero cost. Rolling stock companies. Simple. They are taking premiums on 45 year old stock from companies such as Northern. Create a unified rolling stock procurement that brings back cascading to provincial lines from intercity with unified fleets. No more multi-vinyls including the lgbtqxyz1234 bollards, intercity, provincial. Simples I just saved any govt spending a penny more and cut the 3% being sent to foreign… Read more »
Afternoon DB, I expect rail to carry on doing what’s it done for 100 years under private, nationalised, half private and back to nationalised… Carry on declining…. After all the fanfare it will settle back into its steady underfunded decline in full state ownership.. Successive governments from here on in have to get the rolling stock, infrastructure investment in place, while simultaneously getting an attractively priced national network fully in sync, to bring the public back…. BR always had the profits robbed when it was doing well by whoever was the sitting government, investment was drip fed to point of… Read more »
We need every hull we have right now and a rapid refit to serve as home surveillance vessels that would release the remaining 23s to operate internationally.
It wouldn’t be a rapid refit, it would take years and probably only be finished by the time its replacement was around.
May be a stripped-down 23 with lighter weaponry but capable of fast interception. These two ships might function with less crew and a primary task of UK waters patrols for fish and drugs. Their life expectancy would be short-term until enough T31s are commissioned. I view scrapping these ships as crass and some further service would help the fleet at this uneasy time. A stripped-down superstructure and a hull resto should not take the usual refit time.
That’s not going to happen at all, stripping off top bits of the ship and weaponry isn’t going to change the fact the hull is not fit for sea. Most of the cost of the refit is in the hull and associated machinery, not in the features that actually make it a useful thing to keep around
Or tidy up and donate into Ukraine’s navy in waiting if not totally knackered? Might need a couple if helos to go with them.
They are totally knackered, what is the point in handing Ukraine 2 ships they couldn’t staff or afford to run, when they won’t even be able to get them for years by which time they’ll be in even worse shape.
We are short of Helicopters as it is, we have non to spare. Besides which the way things are going the Future Ukrainian Navy will be based in UK for years.
I thought we were or have a already donated three Sea Kings?
Ahem. Are we charging rent? 😉
Bloody foreigners coming here and taking our accommodation and services.
🙂
Mate, They are falling apart… they are History, soon to join Monmouth and Montrose in Porchester.
Why the hell did they even start to fix them up if they’re too far gone? And you don’t have to answer.. Lol 😁
Just like an old house, you can’t tell how bad the plaster is till you take the wall paper off the walls.
It would be nice if they redirected the funds not used into an order of two extra Type-31s instead.
I sense a T32 announcement quite soon with the budget increases announced.
Coupled with the T26 export that us genuinely good for UK PLC and RN and NATO.
Keep dreaming. There is no extra money for defence. There is £3 billion to come off announced in the spring budget.
Then there is an election. Labour wins then upto 12 months to do defence review.
Tories win then it’s more of the same stealth cuts and creative accounting except they will dump Rishi so anything he says is worthless.
Reform don’t have a defence policy, Lib Dem’s will keep it at 2-2.5%
Coalition stays at 2%
What budget increase. It was very largely smoke and mirrors. They were found out.
Someone commented that it might be the MRSS? Anyway either way a few of us hear will join you in the “dream”.
I’d pretty much guarantee some ship building announcements as they would be good for an election!
Join the dots…..announce money…..announce contracts……count votes?
Cynical? Moi?
They already know, most people just want rid.
Do T31 work?
Put the money into reserve.
I think you’ll find this is what the three River B1’s are for?
God in Heaven, you mainlining bleach?
Scrap the unseaworthy, unmodernised, 23s and put the money into reserve, crews into the surviving fleet and IF T31 delivers, buy more.
Cheers easy.
So we should just accept the incompetence this highlights regards future planning?
Once again decisions are not made or can’s kicked down the road with scant regards for any future requirement or impact.
Symptomatic of the contempt successive governments have shown towards assembling any sort of stragetic coherent force.
Best to scrap both now instead throwing money at them, not easy for some i agree but we do seem through good money after bad for strange reasons. These ships have out lived their designed years.
Given the likely peak threat to western navies is 2027-2030 I suggest it’s madness to scrap any vessels now irrespective of throwing money at them because it’s impossible to create an increase in the surface fleet numbers before 2030 no matter how much money we spend.
Best to keep them along side in a reduced capacity.
Wise words but we both know it not likely the money men want less spending and the ships are old, sad i know but they will never see service again. And i doubt we could fully crew them.
Ships deteriorate exponentially once they are alongside without ongoing care and maintenance.
The idea you can tie a ship up turn the lights off and pop back in 18 months is crazy – as you have very aggressive saline corrosion going on the whole time.
If you turn the a/c off it is even worse as the positive pressure warm clean air isn’t running. So the ship then starts to rot internally.
I agree. In actual fact the main maritime threats can be matched by our current assets and our closest allies (including air) since the opposition is in even worse shape than we are.
It might look terrible politically, but boldness has virtue. Scrap both.
Agreed, I think people think its 1939 and would have go it alone, that is why we are in NATO and no possible hostile nation can match that. Scrap them free the man power up and the money.
Seriously, can they not figure out how to cure the personnel problem? Are these vessel upgrades now being totally wasted? Why don’t they waste some money on an extra T26 and T31! ?
If we have a crewing crisis how is spending money on more ships than we currently have going to help.
Newer ships, growth of the fleet, new tech, improved conditions, wages, etc, all might just help get a few more people to join up. They shouldn’t be wasting millions on rust buckets in the first place.
Buying more ships isn’t exactly going to help with wages.
And we have to spend millions on rust buckets unless you want to capability gap our entire frigate fleet.
Yes, of course the wages issue needs to be addressed. We all like a decent pay and decent work conditions. I’m unemployed myself at the moment. I’ve been applying for over a 100 jobs since mid Jan. No real bites. It’s not easy here in Aus job markets either and I’m a bit too old for the military. Good weather here helps and decent ☕. Maybe they will try and speed up the T26 /T31 builds incrementally? And if they’re short of ships needed yesterday and there’s a little bit extra cash around why not an extra one of each… Read more »
It would be great if we did have cash lying around but we don’t, this 2.5 percent plan just announced won’t really have any effect till 26-27, until then it’s make do with the usual.
I think they’re saying that wages AND extra ships should be part of a wider package of investment, not that extra ships would result in higher wages.
Ahem… aircraft carriers were… what until recently?
Put Service personnel back into career offices for Face to Face interviews with people wishing too join up
T26 and T31’s are at least ten years too late, T23’s are too long in the tooth, the “Growing Navy” quote is a lie and It’ll get worse before it gets any better.
And there’ll be a bit more disruption if the Norwegian T26 order has to fit into the build schedule! 😁
I’m not to sure Norway 4-5 frigates will have a big impact. BAE have spare capacity. Norway will want to build blocks etc. there is fabrication yards around and rosyth may have spare capacity with staff needing work.
Long lead items will take time to get ready allowing planning to happen.
According to BAE, to meet the timeline for the Norwegians they would have to sell one of the currently building 26s for the first in Norwegian service, or at least that was what BAE were briefing at the weekend.
What about the fitout? Won’t Norwegian T26s have totally different equipment? Maybe some is the same. It would be good to sell CAMM/CAMM-ER/MR to them as well following the sale to Sweden. And maybe they’ll take the Merlin as well? God, getting greedy already, even with nothing decided yet. Lol 😆
Your jumping the gun – Norway has yet to put an order in for new Frigates let alone the Type 26.
Norway has said it wants as close as possible to an identical fit out to get the benefits of commonality.
It doesn’t get better. 13 new frigates replace 13 old frigates. The fact they are so late the current ships are having to be scrapped is no consolation.
The only way escort numbers got higher is with new orders. Type 32 unfunded and its role is to replace other ships.
From what I have read Westminster is in such a poor state she is already being stripped down.
So would it make better sense in the short term to transfer Westminsters crew to Argyll?
Pretty sure there isn’t a Westminster crew anymore. If they could transfer them to Argyll, they probably would’ve done that already.
I think “let’s strip them down for parts” announcements should read “we already stripped them down for parts”. How many of the tranche 1 typhoons could realistically be made serviceable again? My guess is 4. The 4 that aren’t scheduled to be stripped for parts.
Westminster is dead. Argyll, not necessarily. Let’s announce the death of Westminster and the mothballing of Argyll. Perhaps, just perhaps, the next government will agree to an increase in the number of RN crew.
These ships were designed for something like 18-20 year lifespan. One of my old engineering professors used to say “an engineer should build in a calculated safety margin, then double it just to be safe, then double it again for all the idiots out there”. The youngest T23 frigate was launched 24 years ago. Even the youngest is past its design life already. The idiots though are in charge.
But why such a short design life when older vessels and those of other countries easily serve for double that?
Because to keep ships running that long means a large Life Extensions like the 23s are now getting and that means money. They were meant to have been flogged off by now.
RN ships are some of the hardest worked ships in the world. They wear out faster.
As designed for a specific service life their replacements should have followed within a reasonable time frame, but the Cold War ended and both major Political Parties procrastinated and delayed for so long that the Type 26 and 31 were ordered way too late.
Ships designed for the more normal 30 year lifespan usually get a midlife major refit somewhere in the 15-20 year span. This is usually a very expensive exercise involving modernisation, replacing worn & obsolete bits, adding new features etc. Even so, such a ship tends to become more maintenance intensive going forward, as you can’t replace everything. A ship designed for a 20 year lifespan can skip this refit all together. New ships also need less maintenance. You do however need to order & deliver the replacement ship on time.
Crazy situation. For years the RN argued it needed a minimum of 19 escorts to meet requirements. With a design life of 20 years, that means one new build per annum. How hard is that to organize and finance? RN leadership has been disastrous, wasting years on global combat ship concepts while prioritizing unaffordable carriers over everything else. The army similarly wasted years on FRES, delivering absolutely nothing. It isn’t entirely politicians fault.
Crazy indeed. Criminal I’d say. It will be many years before we return to 19 escorts in service, which was too few even then. What a painful ride it’s been following the RN in recent years. The carriers are the only good news until we have sufficient T26/31/31B2 or T32.
A couple of wars got in the way and took loads of money unfortunately. As these were land wars the navy didn’t get what it needed.
The wars were funded directly by HMT, not the Defence vote.
Although they were land wars the army only got the kit they needed for those campaigns – their core equipment back home just got older and was not upgraded – they are in a desperate state now.
They got FRES to waste their money on, also entering Boxer program, getting out of it and then ending up buying them..
Yes, the army staff come out of this particularly badly.
The RN would of been even smaller now, had the QE class carriers had not been ordered! None the need for T45 destroyers! Peter S misguided as usual!
With HMS Lancaster returning from the Gulf in around 18 months and where she is almost certainly be scraped and be replaced by Iron Duke, leaving no GP frigates available even if you need one. If Argill’s finishing off took another few months, could you not cross deck either Northumberland’s or Kent’s crew for a year while they’re going through their maintaince piriod until Lancaster arrives back to Blitey?
Kicking the can down the road for the next government!
Westminster sounds pretty doomed but with Argyll actually having completed her LIFEX at great expense she really needs to be retained for another 3 years until the new frigates start to appear.
Struggles to man T23’s coupled with the Albions now both being laid up (all in the context of several escorts already being out of action due to PIP or other maintenance) suggests the RN manpower crises is pretty dire!
I think Ireland has a couple of decent 90m Babcock built OPVs laid up. Why not put in an offer? Crew size 40-50. Good range and sea keeping.
To do what exactly?
Dunno, just throwing it out there. A couple of extra opvs might be useful. Fleet ready escort maybe, or one in the Med, the Gulf or West Africa. They are recent hulls. Could they be economically converted to a useful batch 3 opv?
No, no they couldn’t, even assuming Ireland was willing to sell (which isn’t on the cards). I mean if you want the two old Peacocks have just started to be towed for scrapping, or Eithne next… I mean they are even older than the Type 23’s but make as much sense as trying to use the P60’s.
I think there are 2 Samuel Becket class laid up. These are less than 10 years old. How much would it cost to swap the 76mm for a 30mm and the 20mm for 50cal? Don’t know what systems and radar the ships use but I’m sure RN crew could manage the ship.
They are though reports are two hulls (one IPV) are to go back operational. Not that it matters, they aren’t for sale, would add nothing to RN capabilities and just add costs for new supply chains. It’s as daft as the idea of gutting the worn out 23s and using them for OPVs.
A better idea I think; if we think we need extra OPVs of course.
Sure, I mean how much non RN standard fittings would need to be supported or changed? Sure that wouldn’t cost much extra… And again for what purpose does the U.K. need more OPVs?
Gentlemen.
Please fall in behind the terminology.
We now have taskings. Taskings are given by Govt. Should a platform be so like expired, then, end the tasking, scrap it and re-invest the money accumulated into further new platforms.
Dead as a two Ronnie’s parrot, time to move on.
However, not cold war but, of the era, one should be preserved.
“Two Ronnie’s Parrot”… ? thought it was a python sketch 🤔.
Don’t be pedantic 😉
Both Python and the Two Ronnies are themselves expired, even if the Dead Parrot Sketch lives on. We need to spend more money on comedy groups to pick up the old tropes and create new ones. Since the Ministry for Silly Walks (MfSW) has been folded into the Cabinet Office, we must ask the hard questions. Where will government sponsorship for the preservation of historic comedy come from?
Perhaps we can do what all governments seem to do and raid the Defence budget.
I don’t think the service chiefs could ‘end the tasking’ – they do as they are told by politicians in government – and muddle through the task with the kit they have.
Sir. It is the pollies that set the taskings.
Which was the excuse that a service chief rolled out in cmtte earlier this year when allvthe SSN fleet were tied up alongside.
Certainly it is the politicians that set the top level taskings. I stress top level ie at the grand strategic level.
Service chiefs have autonomy to task at the military strategic level, so long as they do not conflict with HMG policy or wishes, and keep the pollies informed. CNS cannot send ‘a gunboat’ to China as a training exercise!
I would very much expect the Navy to conduct some at-sea SSN activity every day of the year.
Sir, Defence Select Cmtte, listen on BBC iPlayer and hear it for yourself.
Perhaps they should be scrapped for spare parts. The torpedo launchers could go onto something else perhaps.
On to what exactly?
Type 26 🤔
4th plinth at Trafalgar Square?
The UK needs minimum 50 large surface warships just to protect our coast and have some offensive capability. We currently do not have the number surface warships to defend Scotland let alone the entire UK coastline. This was known in the 1982 defense review following the Falklands conflict which indicated amongst many other things that our warships were willfully armed and incapable of defending against a modern sophisticated adversary (unlike Argentina). Whilst another NATO ally Turkey is building Europes largest navy and soon to acquire/build 4 large equivalent sized “Elizabeth class size” aircraft carriers the UK is falling well behind… Read more »
Where are you getting the idea that the Turks are building Carriers? They have their domestic build Juan Carlos class Amphib and are building another one, but they aren’t in the same league as the QE class. That’s not even touching on the issue of whether their plans for new builds actually happens given their economic issues.
The plans for the new carrier, Trakya, has it looking seriously bigger than 25,000 ton Anadolu. 60,000 tons we are told, so not far off QE size. If press is to be believed it will take advantage of their new light fighter, the various drone programmes, and there are murmers about when Turkey will come back into the F-35 family.
The Turkish carriers you are referring to are the smaller ones for helicopter/drone deployment, the carriers they are now developing are for their new stealth combat aircraft with over 290m length, these are 70k ton plus carriers able to support 60 to 75 combat aircraft each. The Turjs have also approached the UK to acquire the smaller Elizabeth class carriers but the UK hadn’t made a decision despute sitting on the request from Türkiye for almost 2 years hence tge Turks will either develop their carrier by themselves or with another partner (Japan is also involved). The Turks are also… Read more »
Less escorts than Italy and of course France, soon Spain Will overpass.
The Russians have lost more ships to no navy Ukraine than we possess, we don’t have enough to safeguard ourselves, the Falklands or anything. This is deliberate on the part of the civil service that are owned by Russia these days. No personnel is a bullshit excuse when we also hear of people spending months not getting any traction in the recruitment process (often because they are straight white males and don’t fit in the politically correct categories required). There is also the bullshit about age, there are a lot of us old miserable bastards that could work on a… Read more »
The minister bullshitted, that’s rare, not. Managing costs… Crap, doing everything on a shoe string budget while wasting money left right and centre. I saw some council had planted 20 tree for 25000 pounds, if they would pay me I would have saved them a few grand, ridiculous largesse with tax payers money and it is everywhere. Schools with diversity managers paid more than teachers and then the navy without sailors or ships. Who would join? After all you know you will be redundant in a couple of years so it’s not a career choice, you know that you won’t… Read more »
Because it’s not polite to talk ill about the dead.
Conservatives have killed the British military might with cuts cuts cuts.