The Ministry of Defence has declined to give a firm date for when the first Type 31 frigate, HMS Venturer, will reach initial operating capability, the UK Defence Journal understands.
Asked by the Conservative MP for Rayleigh and Wickford, Mark Francois, for the current estimated IOC date, Defence Minister Luke Pollard said only that the ship was “scheduled to be handed over to the Royal Navy by the end of the decade”.
HMS Venturer is the lead ship of the five-strong Type 31 class, also known as the Inspiration class, being built by Babcock at Rosyth in Scotland. The class is intended to be a general-purpose frigate that sustains fleet numbers while carrying out tasks such as maritime security, forward presence and escort duties, and the programme has been held up as a model for a faster, more affordable approach to warship building.
The “end of the decade” is later than the dates the programme once carried. HMS Venturer had at an earlier stage been expected in service around 2027, itself a revision of original planning that had envisaged the first ship entering service earlier in the decade. The schedule has moved over the life of the programme for a number of reasons, including the effects of the pandemic on industry, supply-chain disruption and inflation, factors that have affected major shipbuilding projects across the board rather than this one alone.
Part of the more recent timeline also reflects deliberate choices in how the ship was built. Venturer was kept inside the assembly hall at Rosyth longer than first planned so that more of the fitting-out could be completed under cover, an approach intended to improve build quality and reduce the work needed once the ship was in the water.
She was floated off into the Firth of Forth in June 2025 and is now being fitted with masts, sensors and weapons, with combat systems integration carried out in partnership with Thales UK.
The wider class remains officially planned to be in service by the early 2030s, with steel already cut on later ships and construction running in parallel at Rosyth.
Excellent news.
Keep up the great work.
They still hope to win the Danish contract with this wonderful news?
Good luck with that
Just like the HMS Glasgow, I don’t think it’ll be commissioned and deployable before 2028.
Seem to recall “35 by 35” was the slogan used by Babcock. Lucky if we get “5 by 35” at this rate.
Wasn’t it “30 by 2030”? Might have misheard. Any extras will be welcome, for the RN and exports.
It was 31 Type 31 by 2031 IIRC. Certainly out the window now.
*sorry, might have been “31 by 2031!” lol.
Wasn’t the original in-service date 2023? Let me look that up…. Yes it was. Promised in 2017, back when it was a Type 31e.
Selected In 2019. £250 Million limit on cost. Delivery dates pushed back from 2023 to “Who the feck knows”.
Any Future Export Orders ? Who the feck knows.
Batch 2/T32 ? Who the feck knows.
Will It even work ? Who the feck knows.
Will there be any T23’s left ? Who the feck knows.
I just realised 9 years ago ministers were saying it’ll be operational in 6 years, and now they seem to be saying something very similar. If it’s handed over at the end of the decade and it takes two years to get operational, that would mean Pollard is saying it’s still six years away. Despite the fact that the ship has launched and is currently being fitted out.
It doesn’t say anything about the ship, but I think it says everything about ministers.
More a comment on the pace of delivery of first in class rather than quantity. Frustrating that there are two hulls in the water and no sign of progress of Venturer.
Progress Is being made.
I saw a bloke standing back watching the paint dry.
I think that was the grass growing guy.. they send someone around to Check on grass growth on the deck.
Oh…
They had Tree Surgeons down in Portsmouth trying to extract HMS Daring from Dry Dock.
One tree had 10 rings.
Aren’t you supposed to answer before it gets to ten rings?
😂😂😂
I wonder if that means they are planning to do the capability upgrades before IOC.
Yes.
Angled decks and C&T’s will be added sometime in the next 10 years.
They’ve still not ordered the Mk 41s for the T31s. They ordered them for the T26s in 2018. To me that doesn’t sound like they are thinking about bringing forward the capability inserts.
GENERAL PURPOSE (GP) Is pushing it a bit With Very Little ASW…! T31 More of a Very Large Missile OPV !
‘ A problem Child for The Navy’ !
Patrol frigate, I think the name would be.