Delivery of the Royal Navy’s next-generation attack submarine fleet is conditional on productivity improvements at the Barrow shipyard, Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard has told the House of Commons, as the government declined to put an exact figure on how many boats will be built.

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge pressed the minister at defence questions, noting that the headline promise of the Strategic Defence Review on its publication in June 2025 was a commitment to buy up to 12 attack submarines, that the government could not say at the time how many that meant in practice, and that ministers had promised the detail of the review’s commitments would be set out in the Defence Investment Plan. “So exactly how many attack submarines are they going to buy?” he asked.

“The defence investment plan clearly sets out our intention to buy up to 12 SSN-AUKUS submarines,” Pollard replied. “Their delivery is conditional on the improvements in productivity that we are working with BAE Systems to deliver at Barrow, not just in workforce but in production shipyard facilities. We plan to buy up to 12 SSN-AUKUS submarines.”

The answer maintains the “up to 12” formulation that has stood since the Strategic Defence Review, while attaching the delivery of the fleet explicitly to output at Barrow-in-Furness, where BAE Systems builds the Royal Navy’s submarines. The Defence Investment Plan confirmed that steel will be cut on the first SSN-AUKUS boat next year, with the class replacing the Astute-class attack submarines and shared with Australia under the AUKUS partnership, and the government is targeting a production drumbeat of a new submarine every 18 months from the expanded Barrow and Raynesway facilities, a rate analysis has described as demanding without further capacity growth.

The conditionality Pollard described is matched by heavy investment in the capacity it depends on. The plan includes a Submarine Build Modernisation effort to expand manufacturing capacity, accelerate production and improve productivity in support of AUKUS, alongside £6 billion for expanding and transforming submarine manufacturing between 2025-26 and 2029-30, while Rolls-Royce has broken ground on a doubling of its Raynesway reactor site, where defence minister Lord Coaker revealed last week that the fifth SSN-AUKUS reactor is already in manufacture.

Barrow is simultaneously completing the final Astute-class boat and building all four Dreadnought ballistic missile submarines, and overall deterrent spending in the plan runs to £63 billion over the next four years across Dreadnought, SSN-AUKUS and the warhead programme.

George Allison
George Allison
George Allison is the founder and editor of the UK Defence Journal. He holds a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and specialises in naval and cyber security topics. George has appeared on national radio and television to provide commentary on defence and security issues. Twitter: @geoallison
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74 COMMENTS

    • Honestly 6 SSNs and 6 diesel subs wouldn’t be so bad. But 12 SSNs will never happen. The MoD is scapegoating Barrow for its own inability to fund a capability.

      • By ‘diesel’ I assume you mean AIP? I think a handful of AIP boats would free-up 8 to 12 (!not holding my breath!) SSNs to go and do their GIUK job. But, this AIP boat would/ should likely be a German or Swedish design (why waste money reinventing the wheel?), built under licence and there is little or no spare capacity in the UK. UK shipbuilders such as Babcock and (maybe) CL will be learning to build these new fantastical CCV ‘sloops’. BAES has it’s hands full with T26. Navantia has it’s hands full with FSSS likely followed by the new Anglo-Dutch assault ship. Treasury won’t sign-off on anything being built abroad so, it’ll never happen, sadly.

        • Id agree (unusually), with mr. Spock about the reform party. their policy towards defence is unknown.th and their rhetoric strikes a chord with many voters, but there’s no experience in the party that suggests that they knowA NYTHING,or any kind of suggestion that they can run the economy or the defence of the nation ifgovernment s get involved in the subject, you’re basically fu***d. there needs to be a act that guarantees their must be a minimum of 25 front line ships maintained and at least hopefully at a condition of high readiness at all timesa d,hat Luke the U. S navy, permission to retire a warship needs governmental permission. All of this hybrid navy stuff is interestingz but whether it will happen at all a xynic and I think it’s all a crock of shi*. The T83 decision proves that the. Nation is playing a game of risk and We’re at the pieces.

        • Id agree (unusually), with mr. Spock about the reform party. their policy towards defence is unknown.th and their rhetoric strikes a chord with many voters, but there’s no experience in the party that suggests that they knowA NYTHING,or any kind of suggestion that they can run the economy or the defence of the nation ifgovernment s get involved in the subject, you’re basically fu***d. there needs to be a act that guarantees their must be a minimum of 25 front line ships maintained and at least hopefully at a condition of high readiness at all timesa d,hat Luke the U. S navy, permission to retire a warship needs governmental permission. All of this hybrid navy stuff is interestingz but whether it will happen at all a xynic and I think it’s all a crock of shi*. The T83 fiasco,you can say you’re going to increase the size of the armed decision proves that the. Nation is playing a game of risk and We’re at the pieces.

          • I’m just waiting to see how Count Binface does against the Count of Monte Crypto in the Clacton by-election

      • What is going on with Excalibur design weaponising it yet they’re not big and should be built in a huge number of vessels at that size I think 3 per month is about right.

    • We need to switch to bombers. Submarines are the cost of several frigates and take a long time to build. I’m all for expanding the fleet in ANY direction, but this hybrid fleet bollocks does my nut in. I don’t believe that either the navy or the governmentan d th girl in accounts are even on the same page. Direction? Priority’s it’s the age old question of numbers or gadges? Successive government’s have tried to do both and now we’re seeing that you can’t have both.

      • Lol. I think in the day of “Whatever the question the answer is drones” that pretty much rules out frigates, bombers and submarines and everything in between. Perhaps the youth of today will envisage a delivery system where we put a QR code on a weapon and entrust it to Yodel or someone.

        Quite frankly Governments have been in general agreement since WW2 that defence is something we should have. A cold war level of armament was fine it’s just that ramping up from a peace-time level takes time a decisive action. Not a good time for the current Government.

  2. I suspected the number was dependent on building time line rather than budget not that budget won’t be an issue it’s just an issue twenty yers from now. But obviously you can’t buy it if they can’t build it.

    • What is going on with Excalibur design weaponising it yet they’re not big and should be built in a huge number of vessels at that size I think 3 per month is about right.

        • Didn’t say otherwise, though there’s even worse around (ie Reform).

          Maybe you’d like to point that out to Grinch?… I doubt he’ll agree.

        • We need to switch to bombers. Submarines are the cost of several frigates and take a long time to build. I’m all for expanding the fleet in ANY direction, but this hybrid fleet bollocks does my nut in. I don’t believe that either the navy or the governmentan d th girl in accounts are even on the same page. Direction? Priority’s it’s the age old question of numbers or gadges? Successive government’s have tried to do both and now we’re seeing that you can’t have both. Diesel submarine Gtech logy has come a long way since we operated that type of boat. They are only inferior to nuclear boats in the aspect of speed while submerged but they are cheaper and, simpler than nuclear boats they can be produced faster in smaller yards at the end of their lives they don’t need to be kept for decades before they are actually scrapped it can be done immediately..

        • Or 12 type 45’s an 12 type 26. The treasury can beat we are no money for defe, yet while invincible class carriers were going, half a trillion pounds was suddenly found to build two super? Carriers.

    • I’d be surprised if anyone was really taken in by the 12 SSN , claim. But investment in barrow must be MADE a priority for future investment
      e a priority..

    • If there was no intention of ordering more, they wouldn’t be paying through the nose now to expand the build rate at barrow. If the plan was just a straight like-for-like replacement, the existing facilities would be fine, other than scaling up RR to cater for AUKUS as well.

      Either way it’s not going to be this government’s problem. The last batch of boats won’t be on the order books by the time of the next election

  5. How the hell are BAE and RR supposed to commit to the investment necessary to improve productivity if they don’t have a firm commitment on the number of boats being ordered?

    • Because they have been given a shed load of public funding, firm orders to keep them humming for over a decade, and a clear demand signal that HMG will take as many as they can build in between SSBNs.

      It is hard to think of a more clear-cut incentive to invest in widening a capacity bottleneck

    • There will be a firm order at an early stage, otherwise nothing will proceed. If that order is, as most likely, for 6 or maybe even 8 SSN-A, BAE and RR will be very happy. If by any chance HMG can afford more, there is nothing to prevent them ordering 6-8 plus 4 options.

      That said, the cost of defence nuclear is so large and hobbles up so much of the procurement budget, money spent on SSN-A is money not available for new aircraft, armoured vehicles or ships. On the budget we have, 6-8 SSN-A and half a dozen diesel SSK, would be much closer to what we can actually afford. We are yet again piling too much big money into the RN, when any future conflict in Europe wil require as a priority air superiority and boots on the ground, with the navy the minor part.

      12 SSN-A would be a flawed strategic approach, when we are so short of combat and CS aircraft and particularly troop numbers to provide anything like the 6 heavy brigades we are supposed to provide to NATO as a strategic reserve corps.

      • Sorry, 20th Century NATO v Warsaw Pact thinking. It’s not just that the Soviet Union collapsed but that many leading players alongside Russia in the Warsaw Pact have now swapped sides. They absolutely hate Russia! The continental Europeans can and should be responsible for land warfare on the Continent. There is no reason for BAOR or RAFG again. The world has changed. Our Continental allies should concentrate their money and effort on land warfare plus the Baltic and Black Sea. The UK should concentrate on keeping the North Atlantic open.

  6. I don’t know why people are being negative again.

    It’s been explained many times that there’s a build window between dreadnaught and the next SSBN, and it’s all about how many SSNs can be built in that time. For Astute it was 7, but if they can build one every 18 months then it’s 12.

    The MPs answer is accurate. I wish UKDJ did a better job explaining it, I’m sure they’re aware of the reason.

    • Yes, but as I pointed out above: in order to improve the build rate the yard will need substantial investment; without a firm order for 12 boats that investment cannot be made.

    • Because many on here enjoy whinging and whining, pining for the days of the Grand Fleet, battleships, sending children up chimneys, and racism.

          • Please provide links to posts here that have been racist or are you just another woke race baiter who loves throwing the word “racist” at people you disagree with. Why don’t you call us all misogynists, homophobes, transphobes and paedophiles as well for greater effect.

            • Here you go, today’s racist post from Clunker:

              uk-shipyards-to-build-new-amphibious-ships-in-huge-deal/#comment-1121233

              • I quote Clunkers post:

                “Low skilled mate. I doubt they would be much use to anyone
                Only good at rape and murder, as is fitting for their vile cultures”

                While it is very much a vile comment and certainly anti illegal immigrant, it is hardly racist. What race is an illegal immigrant? What race are Albanians, who accounted for 1 in 4 illegals in 2022? What race is a Georgian, another sizeable source of illegals? What race are Romanians, Bulgarians or other Balkan and East European nationalities that enter illegally?
                I’ll answer for you. WHITE EUROPEAN!
                I do not know Clunkers race, do you? Are you making bigoted assumptions? Who’s the racist now? All I see is a complete disdain for illegal immigrants, a disdain shared by many immigrants, who came legally, and their children. Though generally, maybe not so hateful. That seems to be something you and Clunker have very much in common; hateful.
                So why brush the other posters here with the label “racist” just because you disagree with them? It’s just the way far left socialist “woke warriors” try to shut down those who disagree with them by branding them racists, Nazis, far right or some other negative label. See what I did there, haha!
                BTW I’m the son of a legal immigrant and can say with absolute certainty that both my parents and my siblings completely oppose illegal immigration. Why? The clue is in the word “ILLEGAL”.
                You and Clunker seem to be opposite sides of the same coin; made of the same stuff.

                • You’re being disingenuously naive if you believe Clunker’s comment is not racist. You know full well that he’s not referring to Albanians or Romanians by the comment about “rape”. He’s fixating on the far-right narrative of connecting small boat illegal immigrants from Muslim countries with the activity of rape-gangs which have disproportionate numbers of members from the Indian sub-continent.

                  But if you want to turn a blind-eye to racism, then that’s between you and your conscience. But don’t be surprised when he eventually starts targeting people like yourself. Because racists never run out of people to hate.

      • Even Canada have admitted their errors for under investment and under a normal well rounded human being like Mark Carney. They are going to commit to 5 percent of gdp and just bought 12 subs from Gremany. The uo has to put up still with mp and prineministers who dont seem to know anything about anything hence still not committing to naval frigate and submarine inveatment along with naval ibfrasteucture and skilled work force. There is plenty of money in uk just spent badly

        • “under investment”, “The uo”, “prineministers”, “inveatment”, “ibfrasteucture”

          Seems like the Russian trolls that actually know English have all gone to the meat-grinder of the Ukrainian front.

          • Wouldn’t a more rational person conclude that the poster has fat fingers and didn’t spell check. Just look at your qwerty keyboard.
            Then again the less rational would come to the conclusion that they are either Russian or far right Tory racist scum. Isn’t that so?

            • They would need fat fingers, spell-checking switched-off, and a complete inability to spell as hitting a neighbouring key doesn’t explain all the howlers. I will concede that in addition to a Russian troll they could also be high on recreational drugs.

    • Why was Astute 7 and not more in that time, BAE / RR did not have the budget commitment for more, the time was filled until the Dreadnought class was ordered. If 10 were ordered in 2001 or whenever then we’d have 8 or 9 in the fleet by now.

  7. At it already cutting the numbers, no shock there, say we should get 12 then back tract to save money. Alweays the same with the UK Mod, lies. tricks, smoke and mirrors but never stick to thier word, lets she how many we end up with, snd were the excuses come from. Stamer shafted the military and he knows it,

    • The early boats were all built outside and were way less complex than the new ones, hence why it is all done at Barrow in the DDH. CL hasn’t got anywhere near enough land to build a Hall that size.
      Oh hang on I forgot CL no longer exists.:-(

      • I wasn’t necessarily think of them, but I guess it is so more complicated now and Barrow had a colossal gap so a competitor would have made it worse. At least with Rosyth, Devonport, RR and others a steady tempo should enable planning in advance with certainty. Also hopefully money will be there for a spares stock.

  10. A new larger hall at Barrow must be on someone’s Desk waiting approval…@ DIP stated ‘up to 12 ‘ needs Clarification… we can’t keep running in Circles…
    This is All rather embarrassing Internationally…

  11. Lets see for the last 30 year the build rate has been mainly determined by the overall funding and the Schedule for the Staged Payments for HMT !
    The exception to that were the Astutes and T26 both of which were hampered by the run down of the yards, trained work force and supply chains which was due to gaps in the order book ! In this instance that isn’t the case as its a straight run of 3 successive orders.
    As for industry being properly funded this time its all a but different as there are 2 Governments involved instead of just our own home Clowns. Australia has provided Billions to get this up and running as well as HMT, BAe and RR and we all know that AUKUS is a 3 way Treaty with the US.

    In other words DONT MUCK IT UP ! OR ELSE. And IMHO this is HMG just reminding industry that they are the recipients of 10’s of Billions of £ $A’

    Long lead items were ordered years ago, 5 reactors are in the build process, BAe, SFM and RR are all being very heavily invested in to modernise and double capacity, so that side of it should be fine.

    Which is all we know in the public domain, but what isn’t are the 4 Big items no one is talking about !

    1. How many SSN-A Boats the RN wants to buy ?
    2. How many SSN-A the RAN wants to buy ?
    3. How they are going to manage the NPT requirements so that Australia can build its own Boats but not have access to the Reactor and its Fuel which have to be built and assembled here and then safely shipped to Australia.
    4. What the cost per boat is based on the above little Chicken & Egg conundrum.

    Normally its just a matter of the Number of Complete Boats to be built that determines the Cost per Boat and can that be done in the time available before moving on to the next SSBN. But this time the other factor is point 3 and this is all a new problem because depending on how they do it determines how much extra work has to carried out on top of just building on site.
    Just think what happens if the RAN Boats all have the Reactor Compartment and the complete Propulsion unit assembled in its pressure hull as a block and then Barged to Australia.

    BAe isn’t flattening Old Storage Tanks, clearing land and building 3 new Block Assembly Halls at Barrow and new housing estates for Nothing !

  13. Barrow under Vickers managed 9 SSN/SSBN’s between 1962 and 1973. That was at pace and would be difficult to replicate. Also during this period they also built Surface warships for the RN and other navies around the world and Merchant ships for several companies including BP. The difference then was the work force was over 25K in number and the managers were proper shipbuilders with a vast amount of experience led by Len Redshaw who taught the US how to weld Nuclear boats and to prefabricate at scale. Unless the government allow for massive investment and BAE Systems increase apprenticeships and technical innovation the task will be beyond them. Finally the MOD and Government need to leave BAE to it and stop interfering and changing specs during the build process.

  14. As previously stated on this forum I have more chance of getting a whale up my backside than RN getting 12 new attack subs – despite being told to pucker up!!!!

  15. On decisions like this, you know for sure that when a politician says “up to”, what they actually mean is “less than”. So, not 12 after all.

  17. The new PM needs to sort out the Disconnected between HMT and the MOD before anything else….
    DIP Seems to have become a wish list of if or when we can afford it…. .
    ie ‘Up to’ 12 Nuclear Submarines ..!?

  19. 12 SSN-A would be completely over the top on our defence budget.

    The RN can’t even get 7 Astutes in a working condition and nor can they crew them.

    The RN’s future role, as set out in the SDR, is principally in the NATO area and specifically the North Atlantic. What on earth wouid we need 12 SSNs for to do that job, to add to the umpty T93 UUV mini submarines.chugging about?

    The only reason we would want 12 is if we were planning to mount a world-wide naval presence. But that is not at all what the SDR says. Is this yet another campaign by the RN to rule the waves and two fingers to the budget, the SDR and the rather more essential need to increase the size of the minimalist RAF and sub-minimalist Army? Money spent on £1bn+ SSNs is money NOT available for aircraft, armoured vehicles, missiles and even frigates and minor warships.

    I sincerely hope that the ‘up to 12’ means a max of 8, or maybe 10 one day if the economy is flourishing. But more realistic financially would be 6 SSN-A and 4-6 diesel electric SSK… even that is a lot more than we can realistically afford and strips the money fir vital kit from the other two services, gir no obvious good reason.

    • Exactly, buying SSK’s takes away from SSN’s… if we do settle for 12 then great, less than that? Then we’re better off buying 4 more T26.

  21. On a more serious note, who do you think will win in the Clacton by-election, Count Binface or the Count of Monte Crypto??

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