The Prime Minister has said the UK is actively working at a high level to secure a potential Danish order for Type 31 frigates.
Speaking to MPs, Keir Starmer confirmed efforts were ongoing at the highest levels, stating “we are working very hard on it, including at leader level,” and adding “I very much hope we can make progress.”
The proposed deal would centre on the Type 31 frigate, built by Babcock at Rosyth, and is understood to be worth around £1 billion. While the platform’s involvement has been widely reported, the Prime Minister’s comments, for the first time, confirm sustained political backing for the bid at high level.
Starmer placed the Danish discussions within a broader pattern of recent defence export activity, pointing to agreements with Indonesia and Norway. “We have obviously already done a deal with Indonesia, which is important for Babcock’s Rosyth shipyard,” he said, linking export success directly to workload and continuity in UK shipbuilding.
He also framed the effort in strategic terms, stressing that such agreements are “not just the orders but how we integrate and work strategically with our NATO partners.” He indicated that any Danish deal would follow a similar model to the Norway agreement, combining industrial output with closer military cooperation.
The Prime Minister highlighted interoperability as a central objective, arguing that aligning capabilities across allied fleets strengthens operational effectiveness. He said the Norway arrangement ensures that “our service personnel can work on their frigates and their service personnel can work on ours,” describing this as “a really big step forward.”
He added that the UK is encouraging European partners to go beyond increasing defence spending, calling for greater alignment in capability and planning. “That means not just more defence spend, but more co-operation and co-ordination,” he said.
Starmer pointed to lessons from Ukraine, noting that differing equipment and systems across allied nations had made cooperation more difficult than it should have been, reinforcing the case for more standardised platforms such as Type 31.
The Danish competition comes at a time when the Royal Navy is under pressure to balance export ambitions with domestic fleet requirements. Asked how that balance should be managed, Starmer said “we need both, and we need to get that right”.
Im of two minds of this great to see both frigate yards securing exports and staying open but it removes any chance we have of getting new frigates.
I agree Jim. It’s both a blessing and a potential headache for the RN. My worry is this government can cut Frigate numbers using the justification of sharing the task load with Norway and Denmark. I can’t see how Rosyth could deliver frigates for the RN, Norway and Denmark in good time and order so something has to give.
Babcock is building a second build hall in Rosyth meaning they will be able to build 4 vessels at once that’s very good capacity in the UK and Babcock have developed a shipbuilding program to streamline the build process and with every ship they build they should get faster, it would seem Babcock are actively preparing for export orders and a side note Rosyth isn’t building anything for Norway
Apologies, i meant Barrow not Rosyth, it’s early and my caffeine intake is low. I agree the capacity to build 4 vessels at once would be an excellent capability and with continued orders and investment perhaps more of our allies could look towards us for their frigate programs.
Barrow hasn’t built a surface ship in decades I think you mean Glasgow. Are you sure you haven’t taken decaf by mistake 😉
FML I’m just going to crawl back into my drunken hole and forget this morning happened 😉
We’ve all had those moments
I worked on the last surface ships we built in Barrow,Wave Knight,Albion and Bulwark.We built and delivered all three ships between 1998 and 2004 a record at the time.We were supposed to get the Type.45s as we had put in the best tender but the Labour government of the day transferred them to Yarrow as they had an election coming up and we ended up with redundancies that were originally going to be for Yarrow and Govan .This was despite the fact we had put in the best tender so for somebody to say that Barrow was not capable of building surface ships is a total fabrication.Barrow still has plenty of spare capacity to enable them to do this with two massive build halls a slipway and talk of a third build hall being built.
Babcock is a very smart company so I have it feel that if they are investing in an increase ship building capacity they must feel there is a market for exports.
However export orders for frigates are like hens teeth, most muppet politicians from countries that can afford large warships want to turn them into jobs creation programs at any price like Australia and Canada.
Very few counties are rich enough to afford them and forward looking enough to look to buy them off the shelf like Norway and some of the other Scandinavian countries.
Most countries that do export frigates tend to do so at a loss like France who also largely look at their military as a jobs creation programme.
I think the idea of an always on production line will attract exports however the royal navy needs to increase in size to sustain two such yards especially with H&W now building large fleet auxiliaries.
That being said as Babcock is also showing there is major component work out there for the USA as well and with 17 AUKUS submarines at 10,000 tonnes a piece there will likely be even more work in the offing soon.
If Babcock’s is so smart why are the Type 31’s so behind schedule?
PS Warships aren’t built on production lines like cars.
They generally are when you are going for build economy of even a couple of ships rather than a unique one-off ship, production jigs are built and then panels and piping are mass produced not too dissimilar to aircraft production. Even for the two QE carriers the sections were built in repeatable common module form across several shipyards then taken to one place for final assembly.
I’m sure France makes enough money on the after-sales to compensate for any intial losses on the sales.
And the always on production stops expensive retraining
“Most countries that do export frigates tend to do so at a loss like France who also largely look at their military as a jobs creation programme.”
That is 100% false Naval Group posted €350m net income in 2024. Thales, Dassault and Safran are also profitable.
France is the 2nd biggest arms exporter in the world and generates profits from exports not losses.
The ‘removes any chance of ( the RN) getting new frigates’ is something we need to fix. The French seem to manage it. Shipbuilders need faith in govt support – a trusted partner – to develop, build and sell their products and if necessary, to buy the minimum quantity for continuity of a profitable business.
Problem is the Royal Navy is in to the next new shinny program with MRSS and they want six of them like super frigates. Personally I think we should just go for two very large MRSS (40,000t) and use the saving to order the Type 32 from Babcock based on the T31 design but with just 16 mk41 VLS but the ability to handle drones with a stern ramp.
We don’t need global presence with high end small amphibious warships. Large modified car ferries can do most of the job. We do need a large platform able to deploy helicopters and landing craft but we only need one or two of them. If they have to be protected with their own missile defence systems then we may as well make sure the ships are as big as possible
I like the sound of that, let’s just build 2 or 3 Ellida Strike at Belfast and then see what Babcock can do with the AH140 hull.
I’m not an expert but would agree with that approach. In the meantime we do have the Bays’ well docks and heli spots. Protect them with frigates.
A proper LHD would be nice, 3 to allow 1 always available. 25-30,000 tonnes allows a ramp for fixed wing meaning we can use it as a baby carrier when both QECs are in dock.
LHDs however compromise on the vehicle and personnel space in order to fit in their hangars below the deck, and are more expensive than an equivalent LPD. Have a look at this internal arrangement drawing of Trieste (put in the dot between bucket and com):
shipbucketcom/drawings/4093
We can get 4 Commando Merlins and a 2 Chinook flight deck on a 25000t LPD, that’s good enough.
I think this is pretty much standard behaviour for this Govt, on the hoof obscuration. He (they) can go on about more Frigates being built while in reality it covers us having no more perhaps less for the RN or probably best case later to service. Meanwhile the ‘interoperation’ argument is important because it means we are to a degree leasing out our own security to like minded Countries conveniently located between us and the obvious enemy which will save them money, they see this as genius no doubt, our European allies are seeing through it mind, all talk minimum of action. All smoke and mirrors as demonstrated by the ludicrous announcement about Iranian missiles not being capable of hitting Britain but if they were that no fear we are fully capable of defending against them. No one with any knowledge thinks that is true but technically it isn’t a lie because the T-45 probabaly can on paper defend against them. BUT in the real World we have one, maybe two active, the number of missiles available to them is obscure at best, they would need to be in the right place at the right time, be alert and ready and meanwhile one is now in the Med and took a week to arm up, even when it was here. Meanwhile no authentic interception has ever been carried out by them (just tests and over a decade ago determining they have some capability).
So in reality we have as good as nothing to protect us from such an attack unless France, Germany, Italy (or some US ship ready and willing conveniently in the vicinity) were to be able to cut them out before they got here, which conveniently ties in with my first point about British ships in foreign service being seen as effectively our frontline defence capability. Yep seems to be a thread evident here. All that seems important to Starmer and co is to give the public the mythical sense of protection while talking about new capabilities with all those glorious project names, in the actual reality of never having to be tested while they are in Government, the threat over stated (hopefully true in this particular case, it’s the Israeli threat textbook) or others will protect us as they are in the line of fire too. Pretty much a theme that goes wider through all this Govt’s policy making it seems trying to make all the slices fit a far too small cake while trying to fool everyone all of the time.
Question: could half a dozen T31 fitted with Mk41, (re-instated) Aster NT block 2 and Artisan NG, together with existing ‘Sea Viper Evolution’ T45s form the basis of a credible BMD defence?
Defence of what?
Key bases, infrastructure, an East Coast ‘chain home’ ?
Not easily. Artisan isn’t really made for BMD. Thales NS240 would be a better option to upgrade the radar being the big brother of the NS110, but even then any rotating radar isn’t optimal for BMD.
And more importantly if we just want bmd for the UK we are better of making it on a land-based system as then you can park it in the middle of the UK and cover far more land area even with the same missile than a ship off the coast and it would be cheaper.
Thanks. I did read that Artisan is planned to come in both rotating and fixed face flavours.
To be honest mate it kinda makes me wish an Iranian missile would harmlessly crash down in a deserted field in Kent somewhere. Would be a punchy wake up call for Joe Public and steamroll through the self delusional lie that this country is currently able to defend ourselves from the threat.
It’s never as harmless as you think. As I recall that’s how a former Earl of Sussex popped his clogs. He was in bomb disposal, and this bomb harmlessly crashed somewhere deserted in Kent… Nor was he the only one to die in that particular explosion.
Looked it up. It was the Earl of Suffolk who was doing the bomb disposal, not Sussex.
Would not Slough or Ealing be more productive?
Onwards does lose faith when Starmer says the lessons of the Iranian war are being fed into the DIP… Just prevarication.
The Defence Strategy was published and has been shown to have some omissions, admit that, published the DIP stamped with W.I.P.
It is worth noting that the current government is the first government since the 1970’s to actually secure frigate exports for a UK yard.
Gimme a fucking break. Bae entered and won the Type 26 into the Norwegian contest. Not Starmer and his band of clowns.
Wrong. As Norway made clear, they didn’t want to just buy a warship, they wanted any purchase to be part of a much larger strategic partnership between the two countries. That requires government involvement.
Wrong. The T26 won because its the premier ASW frigate in the world.
Wrong.
Though it is the best ASW frigate and the Norwegians from the start said that that was only a factor. Even if the Type 26 wasn’t the best, it would have made sense for them to have chosen the British ship.
(If nations only chose ship designs based on which is best, the Septics would be building Type 26s instead of grey Coastguard Cutters.)
No it isnt the conservatives did and did some of the leg work for deals coming through. Lets be fair about it
Aside from being terrible ragebait, you’re also just wrong.
The Lekiu class built for the Malaysians in the 1990s would be the most recent frigate exports built in the UK.
It may give the government the excuse it needs to use English shipyards. Cammell laird for instance completed the Sir David Attenborough. No reason they couldn’t make a few type 31. They already doing mega block work for type 26.
agree with this Jim. Great to secure jobs, but the RN’s on it’s last few GP frigates and needs the vessels now.
If the sale is there you have to take it, rather than worry it might crowd out a potentially non-existent RN order. It might actually make it more viable if unit prices improve with more volume and technique improvements – Active had a shorter and cheaper float-out than Venturer and it’s suggested Formidable might miss out the drydock stage entirely. A Type 32 order should be stretched over a much longer period than the Type 31 one was, in my opinion, keeping the facility going at little annual cost to the MoD with capacity for exports. One unit every 18mths perhaps.
They would be built in Denmark, just design purchase and some components I suspect.
It’s unlikely the Danish didn’t build the Iver Huitfeldt class themselves the first time around vessels were build in blocks in Lithuania and Estonia with final assembly in Denmark
Yes I think something similar would happen with these, think even the Poles have been mentioned as a part option as their spec has been a closer fit.
Denmark has lost its ability to build complex warships.. it was always marginal, but they have little regenerate from and they only want a handful of frigates so it could not be sustainable.. they are being pragmatic about it and very much stated domestic production is a like not a need..
That is incorrect .We are in fact regenerating our naval shipbuilding capability and a new government owned “frigate factory ” will be constructed to build all future danish naval vessels(+40 vessels in the current shipbuilding plan), the new arctic patrol ships being the first. While the first couple of AAW frigates would likely be built in blocks elsewhere and then assembled in DK , later hulls will be built from the ground up in the new facility in Frederikshavn. This plan btw has full bipartisan political support in Denmark.
Yes but a lot of that regeneration is based on small ship need.. and it’s very much about regeneration of the ability to build less complex warships. they have made it very clear that the overwhelming goal is getting the frigates not regenerating the capability to build frigates.. the home build is a “like to have” not a “need to have” for the government of Denmark in regards to the frigates.
Realistically Denmark has not built a complex warship in 15 years and it made zero attempt to keep even a seed of that capability, even the yard itself closed down 15 years ago.. in the end the reason the Iver huitfeldts need an immediate replacement is because OS as a primary civil building messed up the integration of it’s systems and now Denmark has 3 very expensive patrol frigates..
I will lay money that your government will do the following
1) The home guard recapitalisation 21 patrol boats
including
2) the 5 larger artic patrol vessels. At 120 meters these will essentially be GP frigates and will be built out to 2035, these ships will take all of Danske Fladeskibes.. and themselves represent a very big skill and capability regeneration task.
3) get either France or UK to build the 3 AAW frigates… with some limited workshare and regeneration happening in Denmark, because they cannot really wait till the mid 2030s to start building these vessels and Danske Fladeskibes will be flat out until the early mid 2030s with the artic vessels.
4) the absalon class will need replacing in the mid 2030s and I suspect it’s these ASW frigates that Denmark will produce domestically.
No, Denmark won’t be building these frigates, the shipyard that built the last ones shut down in 2012.
A design that is basically ours to start with😉. As to components , very little UK content would remain in a notional danish A140 derivative i suspect, as most auxiliary euipment would be sourced from domestic suppliers.
More pointless crap from Keith Starmtrooper.
Our navy needs ships.
The guy is a weapons grade (unt.
I think the term you are looking for is ‘Gruppenfüehrer’. But hurry, at the rate things going you will soon not be legal saying anything which deviates from Labour political correctness. As my grandmother used to say, if you can’t say anything nice, it’s better not to say anything at all. And don’t expect to convince the jury, there won’t be one, just 3 magistrates or one judge, all of whom will be frightened into compliance. Does anyone remember the 1930s?
What? You’re a grown man, get a grip.
National socialism (aka patriotism ) ring a bell? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
What does National Socialism and the NSDAP have to do with ‘good intentions’? If you do any amount of research on the Nazis, you’d be aware of just how early on their later genocidal policies were formulated.
Also, nationalism socialism is absolutely not the same thing as patriotism. Please, will people learn to read again…
I’ll get to the point. The labour policies of limiting access to jury trials and defining ‘Islamophobia’ as a criminal offence are very bad ideas. They will have severe advserse consequences for our freedoms and the dignity of the individual which are much more severe than the issue they are trying to address. If I were marking the labour homewotk I would send it back with an instruction to start again. As regards patriotism, a much abused word. The epithet last refuge of a scoundrel comes to mind. Like motherhood and apple pie, something you feel you can’t question even when you sense its been hijacked by a group with a hidden agenda; as the German people discovered.
I thank you for getting to the point.
Your appraisal of the ‘Islamophobia’ codification issue is overblown. It brings the term into line with other forms of discrimination, and entails no extra pressures outside of what was already implied. Islamophobia is already a criminal offence under ‘hate speech’ – this just brings it to the foreground in an era in which anger towards religious minorities is greatly increased.
Again, the jury issue is overblown. It’s a pragmatic way of tackling the massive backlog, and safeguards are built into the bill. The bill is also greatly limited in its reach.
You haven’t cleared up your equating of ‘National Socialism’ and ‘patriotism’.
A follow up on the Islamophobia pount. As you yourself say, existing laws are sufficient, especially given the ability to define an agravated offence. Muslims have a ( transnational) group faith community and identity in a way comparable only to Judaism. By enacting laws specific to this group you effectively create a kind of ‘internal devolution’ which will inevitably lead to demands for distinct powers over education, health etc. I.e Balkanisation ; the ‘islands of strangers’ already mentioned by Starmer. Once you limit access to jury trials you have embarked on a slippery slope; set a precedence which any future authoritarian minded govt can exploit. I also do maintain that judges need the protection from threats and from themselves, that juries provide. Magistrates also get their authority by being part of a holistic justice system in which the jury system is the ”gold standard’. Lammy’s propsal conflates pragmatism with expedience. National Socialism hijacked anger, poverty and hubris and invoked patriotism. By invoking patriotism Starmer is recruiting for both Reform and the Far Left ( aka Greens ).
🤡
I’ve not heard that term “at leader level” before.
At Cabinet level, Ministerial level, or “I’ve had discussions myself.”
Anyway, all good, and where is Batch 2 of T31 please, Mr Starmer? “We need both” doesn’t mean “more.”
We do but you can guarantee he wants this order so that he can delay commitment to it. I suspect this is where the rumoured delays to the shipbuilding timeline have sprung from. So he can say we are not reducing numbers, not slowing build tempo but the end result is we get ships later and he potentially saves short term costs. All theoretically of course and depends on any such build here agreements though whatever happens I’m sure he would try to sell the message even if much of any Danish order were built elsewhere.
It’s ironic really but in some ways he is taking a leaf out of the Trump textbook (if on a matchbox scale) in manipulating truth through obscuration of the underlying reality by never giving any actual substance to anything he says. Helps to have a personality to carry that one off successfully mind.
Our order for T31 is already set in stone and the ships are being built now so no way to delay them.
I suspect the RN would love to delay the last one or two because by that point they will have a glut of frigates and difficulties in crewing them all.
But export orders for Denmark or Sweden are for different ships to the T31 so it won’t be anything like the Norway deal which is a very clever deal for us and Norway.
Yep batch 2 is vital for both the navy and Babcock.. I suspect they are seeing where it goes with Denmark before ordering for the UK..this may actually be sensible and not just a bit of a shit way to stitch the RN ( although I suspect the treasury will try and stitch the RN)..
1) if HMG negotiations on the back of a three ship order from Denmark they will get cheaper ships
2) Denmark are going to want an upgraded AAW heavy version.. so the RN could play it cool and get the same version .
Just some positive vibes.. but on the down side if Denmark get 3 then I suspect the RN will only get 2 more by 2035
I do hold out hope the some sanity will spring from the MRSS programme and they split it between 2 large deck and well deck amphibious vessels and 4 strike frigates.. because the T31 is very able to be turned into a strike frigates.
We will not be getting strike frigates because the specifications for the new collaborative programme with Norway for the replacement LCVPs is too large and would require a well deck so that means a Type 31 or derivative is too small – we cannot afford cruiser sized frigates with significant armament because that is what you would need to accommodate a well deck and a hangar for 2 or 3 helos.
Like you I hope sanity prevails and we get two decent sized amphibious vessels with hangar and well deck (Combined Drone carrier?) and then something simpler and cheaper like a Bay MK2 would suffice to cover much of the multi role functions that the existing Bays have cost effectively fulfilled in service.
It’s more about numbers.. there is no way on earth that they are ever getting more than 2 20,000+ MRSS.. six is laughable really.. which is where I think the smaller strike frigate fits.
I think you are right about us not getting 6 but 3 was stated by the Government and any less and you are unable to sustain an ongoing commitment so you are into part time capabilities not ideal as our politicians are currently finding out.
I would argue 3 20,000 vessels that could double up as drone carriers could provide something in support of the ASW mission we have in the Atlantic and high north whilst some simpler vessels could offer logistical support across a wide range of taskings.
The Type 45, 26 and 31 all have space for over 50 plus troops, a Chinook capable flight deck, hangar for 2 Wilcats or 1 Merlin and launch facilities for RHIBs as a minimum.
What type of raid does a strike frigate deliver that can’t be achieved by these methods because if it gets any bigger then any element of stealth is lost and you are into something very different.
True but our issue is mass ( being in the correct number of places ) as well as pure escort numbers for all the big stuff.. if we have 3 MRSS at 20,000 ton and 2 carries we essentially have almost a 1 ton1 ratio of AAW and ASW escorts to large stuff that needs an escort .. before we even get to the solid stores ships and tankers that may need escorts and the TAS boat…
There is no easy answer to that conundrum other than we both know we really need more escorts
9 Adverts.
Yes Harry, we are a business.
And just to add, any news from Sweden on a possible AH120 order? This might have further export potential.
O/T the defence blog reporting the US has approved a $1bn support package for AUKUS under a FMS request!
Dear Sir Keir.
Can the RN have a few more fights ships please? Just in case we do actually have to defend our national interests. Another batch of type 31s would be very wise.
Cheers
Of course he does.
He wants to flog off our 5.
The government needs to start talks on opening 1 or 2 new ship yards and finding locations me thinks.
Why? There’s no budget or people for beyond whats currently planned, and unless they get export orders even the yards that are in operation are going to face challenges in the 2030’s
This must be the 5th or 6th article claiming an imminent T31 selection by Denmark, since last summer…..aaany day now i guess🙄. Problem remains that neither T31 nor any other version of Arrowhead 140, satisfies danish requirements for a high end BMD capable AAW frigate.