Sealift replacement gets two hundred and ninety million

The Defence Investment Plan has allocated £290 million for a future strategic sealift capability, with the current contract for the Point class running until the end of 2031 and decommissioning of the existing ships a matter for their private owner, according to an answer given in Parliament.

Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative member for Huntingdon, asked what the expected decommissioning date is for the Point class and what progress had been made on identifying capital allocation to fund their replacement under the Strategic Sealift Future initiative.

Luke Pollard, the Minister of State for Defence, said: “The Point class vessels are privately owned and decisions on their decommissioning are therefore a matter for their owner. The current strategic sealift contract runs until 31 December 2031. The Defence Investment Plan has allocated £290 million for the provision of a future strategic sealift capability.”

The Point class are four roll-on roll-off ships that carry the Army’s vehicles and equipment when a force deploys, held under a private finance arrangement that has run since 2002 and that places ownership and crewing outside the Ministry of Defence, with a £476 million contract awarded to Foreland Shipping to run the service. Two more of the original six were sold some years ago. The ships carried the force into Iraq, have run the Falklands resupply and move equipment to exercises and operations across Europe and beyond.

Private ownership constrains what the department can say in answer to a question like this. The ships can be withdrawn by their owner, and the department’s hold on them runs only as far as the contract, which now has five years and a bit to run.

Replacing them has been under examination through the Strategic Sealift Future work, and the department has said it wants a larger fleet than it has now. A January request to industry for information set out a requirement for four ships of 2,600 lane metres each for routine tasking, and at least 15,600 lane metres across six ships for a crisis, which is around sixty per cent more capacity than the present fleet. Lane metres are the measure that matters, being the length of deck available for vehicles parked nose to tail in a single lane.

Any replacement also has to carry Challenger 3, which is heavier than the tank the Point class was designed around, and that drives deck strength, ramp capacity and stowage planning as much as the raw length does.