The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the dismantling of the former Royal Navy submarine Swiftsure remains on schedule for completion by the end of 2026, as part of the UK’s Submarine Dismantling Programme, according to a written response published on 30 April 2025.
Responding to a question from Graeme Downie MP (Labour – Dunfermline and Dollar), Defence Minister Maria Eagle stated: “The demonstrator submarine, SWIFTSURE, remains on track to be fully dismantled by the end of 2026.”
The dismantling of Swiftsure is the first full-scale disposal of a defuelled nuclear-powered submarine under the Submarine Dismantling Programme (SDP). The process is being carried out at Rosyth Dockyard in Fife.
Eagle confirmed that there are currently “six further defueled Pressurised Water Reactor 1 (PWR1) submarines awaiting dismantling in Rosyth.” These submarines, like Swiftsure, have had their nuclear fuel removed and are being stored safely while awaiting dismantlement.
Regarding future plans for the remaining boats, Eagle stated: “Further announcements about dismantling the remaining PWR1 submarines will be made at the appropriate time.”
The SDP aims to address the long-standing backlog of retired Royal Navy submarines and ensure their safe and environmentally responsible disposal, while meeting regulatory and safety standards.
I can’t recall Maria Eagle ever admitting something isn’t “on track”. Something could be coming years late, but it’s always going according to plan according to her. Unfortunately that means it’s necessary to check. Fortunately, the “disassembled by” date announced in summer 2023 does match that just announced: by the end of 2026.
HMS Victory ?
STUPID. We need submarines and surface ships for the wars coming with russia and merica. Some people might say the ships and boats we have are out of date or need fixing, but hell, it is a damned sight easier to fight from am out of date boat than by swimming across the north sea knife in mouth
Stupid is what Stupid Types.
“That’s all I got to say about that”.
Swiftsure was decommissioned over 30 years ago…..
PWR1 could never be fuelled as you could never have a safety case for it.
The hull will have reached its maximum number of cycles.
No crew would tolerate the conditions onboard.
None of the systems on board would be maintainable as you couldn’t get the bits anymore.
Six other subs?
And what, another 11 at Devonport.
These hulks have an on going maintenance cost to stop them falling apart.
Let’s not rush things!
OK, so ‘stupid is…’, well, you go ahead and swim across if you want and try and sink the russian ships by stabbing the hull with your knife.. ‘No safety case’ well true, we are only at war, what could be worse than losing the whole country… oh yes, someone might stub a toenail! Come on, stop the delusion, the russians are attacking europe RIGHT NOW with cable cutting, power disruptions (Heathrow, Spain….) and there is a LOT more to come. ‘Wont tolerate conditions on board’, no, well lets face it perhaos todays generations wont tolerate not being able to use their sart phones or fiddle with their play stations while choosing to wear a dress in to a gender neutral toilet pretending they are a cat, but therte ARE still people of older generations around who can manage to climb into a submarine and fight, we are old but at least we can cope with using a gents loo. As to the number, we have a lot of them, but we NEED a lot of submarines, look how much ocean there is out there, look at how many ships russia has – oh and America, because woith trump at the helm in the USA they are allies. How the hell does a country with half our GDP manage a navy about 50 times stronger? And maintain a proper air FORCE (not just half a squadron of borrowed planes) and a multi million army (compared to 50,000)? Well because they dont have a bunch of MPs and civil servants feathering their netst.
Wow, you are an absolute sack of shit Dave. This has to be one of the most disgustingly dishonest rants I’ve seen on here in a long time. Ignoring the blatant bigorty and homophobia for a moment, are you seriously acting like a hull that has exceeded it’s pressurised dive limits and a reactor that can’t be refueled as being equivalent to stubbed toes? Really?
You seem pretty determined to ignore that cell phones aren’t being taken onto submarines, or on deployments in general, and play up your absolutely cretinous boomer attitude about younger generations, as if a ship that has been decommissioned for north of 30 years and left to rot would be inhabitable anyone.
You can’t even get your numbers right, but thanks for the laugh at your statement that we should have a multi-million army. Shows just how out of touch and unserious you are.
Absolutely…. Russia has a GDP a fraction of ours and has a multi million army, North Korea has an even smaller GDP and has an even bigger army, many African states have GDPs less than Wales and million men armies… its a matter of WHERE you spend your money. Sadly for people like you we are facing war,you cant fight a war against a million trained and armed men with an army of 50,000, I do not care how wonderful we think their weapons are, how amazing the people are, they are just so out numbered it isnt going to work. Unlike Ukraine we do not have the industries, the steel mills etc. to get weapons production going if we somehow magically survive the first months. More over, its not homophobic, there is nothing wrong with homosexuals but this complete pandering to them, having them celebrate it for a month while we as a country we couldnt spend 2 minutes remembering people that gave us the freedoms we enjoy today. I am sure it has exceeded its paperwork but then many things are seriously over engineered and can do things long after they are supposed to, not only that they can be repaired – there are planes flying from ww1 today, they were NEVER expected to keep flying for well over 100 years. Similarly the reactor can be got fit for purpose, it is the case that these reactors are over engineered and can be repaired and have parts that could potentially break replaced. As I say, it is easier to fight from in a fixed or even an unfixed submarine than by swimming. What numbers do you reckon I got wrong – are you going to claim the army is actually 103,000? if we include reserves etc etc. wow,. but even if you claim that then the same applies, we cant use 100,000 to fight a million and a half russians (and if we included our reservces we should include theirs which makes it 3.5 million),. if we are going to include gurkas why shouldnt we include north korean, chinese, belarussians chechens etc etc thatfight with russia… Russia has what 370 ships, we have 62, the guess of 50 wasnt far off especially when you remember one of our commissioned ships isw an old wooden sailing ship with its planking missing. As for the airforce, we have what 600 if we include transports, helicopters etc. and we have been borrowing planes for our aircraft carriers, the russians have over 4000. come on, whether the numbers are ‘wrong’ or not hardly matters it is clear the point is made that the russians with a gdp of what 2 billion comared to 3.6 billion for us and they afford a lot more. The average mobile doesnt work in the average submarine, fine, but the point was made,we need people that cope with poor living conditions and of course lack of mobiles, soe of us were bought up without the cosseting
Russia doesn’t have a “million man army.” The Russian Ground forces are around 600,000. So no there’s that point. As ase nafor African Armies; Please name one that has a “million man army” I’m waiting with baited breath (although given that you got the size of the Russian Army wrong I put zero stock in your estimates even when you put a name to them).
Luckily we aren’t facing an army of “a Million trained men with 50,000” given that a) Neither of those numbers are correct, and b) NATO outnumbers Russia in both active duty and reserve personnel.
“It’s not homphobic” your bigotry is demonstrably homophobic since you think treating anyone who isn’t straight and cis fairly is “pandering” you piece of shit.
As for what number you got wrong: Baisically all of them. You can’t get the size of the Russian army right, you can’t get the size of the British Army right, you can’t seem to grasp the concept of NATO.
You also then start ranting about the Russian navy which is hilarious because if there was one field the UK could challenge Russia in on it’s own, it’s the Sea; Russia has 3 Cruisers, 10 Destroyers and 12 Frigates. That’s their principal surface fleet, and it’s divided between the Pacific, Black, Baltic and Northern Fleets. The remainder (btw you got the total wrong again) are lightly armed short range corvettes, or patrol boats.
So yes, whether your numbers are wrong, and whether you are even remotely intelligent enough to understand them is actually pretty relevant.
Oh and look the final pathetic dig by the drooling moron who doesn’t know what he’s talking about but has to believe that things where tougher back in the day. I got news for you, you pathetic POS, black mold will kill you just as quickly as it will kill a “cosseted” Gen Alpha (amazing how you’ll act like you care about serving personnel when you can punch down on LGTBQ+ people but the moment we start talking about the realities of modern service life you start smearing modern service personnel, almost like you have no respect for them in the first place, shocker that). Like it or not, ships that have been left to decay for 30 years are not inhabitable, and AS WAS POINTED OUT BUT YOU ARE TOO THICK TO GRASP: THE HULLS HAVE PASSED THEIR PRESSURISATION LIMITS AND THE REACTORS CAN’T BE REFUELLED. YOU MORON.
Doesn’t matter how tough you think you are, whether you think that you can survive ships that haven’t been maintained in a decade, when a submarine hull fails you will die.
But hey, you just want to froth angrily at the mouth, because reality just doesn’t actually matter to you.
Please take the simple action id checking out how many people in the Russian army, the data is freely published. You are probably looking at the number of cooks they have. There are several greater than a million in the world and if, as you seem to with the UK, you include reserves several more. Oh I understand the idea of NATO, we all think the USA will help, sorry pal there is mutual assistance but that could be they supply a tin of beans to help, the USA (and UK) signed up to respect Ukraine’s borders but when push came to shove didn’t respect them enough to actually do anything about Russia’s invasion of Crimea, we aren’t doing that much even now. Your estimates of the Russian navy are laughable, are you a russian trying to portray yourself as a victim? The remains of the black sea fleet still has 3 subs, a four frigates, lots of corvettes, landing craft and other odds and ends, that’s the fleet Ukraine has destroyed a good chunk of.
Black mould is dangerous and can be cleaned, I have to sometimes at home, so what? I am not smearing our forces, what there is of them, it’s not their fault there are too few and they aren’t equipped. The statement that a chunk wouldn’t fight came from the defence minister a while back, how true it is I don’t know. Reactors are designed to be refueled and if they can’t they can be replaced, yes that means cutting and then welding through the pressure hull but they are cut and welded during build. Yes metal fatigues and diving and surfacing will but they can be inspected and repaired but like that meat in the fridge in the supermarket there is considerable leeway in the numbers, a slice of ham with a date of 1st if June is not ready on the 2nd. Yes they have been sat for a while so they will need recommissioning, including repair, still cheaper and quicker than building new.
You seem rather grumpy about the alphabet soup, I have worked with people who are in that, I even have friends in that,I don’t care about it to be honest, because the people I know don’t go marching down the street demanding they are let into the girls toilets or have special toilets if their own, sadly there are people in the soup who do , they hardly help