The major facility upgrades needed to produce reactor cores for the Dreadnought submarines have been delivered, with work now focused on final commissioning and on manufacturing the cores themselves, according to an answer given in Parliament.
James MacCleary, the Liberal Democrat member for Lewes, asked what progress has been made on the Core Production Capability programme in the context of the delivery confidence assessments for Government Major Project Portfolio defence projects.
Luke Pollard, Minister of State for Defence, said: “Delivery confidence assessments for Government Major Project Portfolio Defence projects published by National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority confirm that the Core Production Capability continues to make progress in delivering the infrastructure, workforce and manufacturing capabilities required to support our submarine programmes.
“The major facility upgrades required to support Dreadnought reactor core production have been delivered, with activity now focused on completing final commissioning, manufacturing and delivering the reactor cores required.
“The Ministry of Defence continues to work with Rolls-Royce Submarines to ensure delivery of reactor components in time to support Dreadnought entering service in the early 2030s as planned.
“Work is also underway to modernise and expand the manufacturing capability and capacity required to produce reactor cores and nuclear steam raising plant for future SSN-AUKUS submarines, supporting both the UK and Australian submarine production programmes.”
Core Production Capability is the programme rebuilding the facilities at Rolls-Royce Submarines in Raynesway, Derby, where Britain manufactures the reactor cores for every nuclear submarine it operates. The site is the single point through which the entire submarine force passes, and the plant it replaced dated from the Cold War.
Expanding that capacity to serve Australia as well as Britain is one of the practical commitments inside AUKUS, since Australian boats built at Osborne will run on the same reactor design. Rolls-Royce has been recruiting on a large scale in Derby and has said the site will roughly double its workforce over the programme.
Steel will be cut on the first SSN-AUKUS submarine next year, and the detailed design and long lead phase completes in 2028. The Defence Investment Plan commits £63 billion over four years to the nuclear enterprise.
