New support ships for Royal Navy coming to HMNB Portsmouth as part of huge afloat services contract
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New vessels are being procured as part of a large 10-year £850m contract
The Royal Navy has outlined which of the batch of new support vessels will be stationed in Portsmouth.
A force spokesperson has clarified which new vessels will be stationed across HMNB Devonport, HMNB Clyde, and HMNB Portsmouth, from the afloat services contract.
These capabilities were procured as part of the mammoth 10-year £850m contract between Serco Maritime and the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Damen Shipyards, based in The Netherlands, will be in charge of building 24 new vessels, which includes azimuth stern drive (ASD) and reverse stern drive (RSD) tugs, pilot boats, passenger vessels, barges and cranes barges.
These will replace ageing vessels. Of these, three of them will be stationed at HMNB Clyde, five in Portsmouth, and 16 at HMNB Devonport. A Royal Navy spokesperson said while the new tug boats were allocated to HMNB Clyde and HMNB Devonport, they may be “temporarily reassigned to Portsmouth when operationally necessary”.
The afloat services contract supports the Royal Navy with all towage activities, as well as bunkering and watering, tank cleaning, passenger services, trials work, munitions and nuclear safety activities. Its aim is to secure reliable work at HMNB Portsmouth, Devonport, and Clyde, while ensuring that all deployments from these bases run smoothly.
The contract drew significant criticism at the time from the Prospect Union. Negotiations officer Nathan Morrison previously said it caused significant redundancies and would limit the Royal Navy’s ability to deploy warships, with the latter point denied by the force itself.
It was also critiqued by chancellor Rachel Reeves, who disliked the fact that the construction was taking place overseas. Ms Reeves, in a letter to Cabinet ministers reported by The Guardian, said she wanted to “see more businesses grow and prosper and create good, skilled jobs and apprenticeships here in Britain”.
She added: “Every secretary of state can and must lead this agenda within their departments if we are to deliver the change the public expect. Therefore, it is disappointing that we are still seeing too many Government contract awards where this is not happening. We have instructed officials to take further steps to ensure your departments act in the wider national interest rather than solely focusing on narrow operational priorities.”