Royal Navy: Armed Forces minister promises Type 31 ships will be built as MoD makes fleet boosting commitment

Luke Pollard, Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, reaffirmed the government’s commitment to complete the Type 31 frigate programme. These five warships, currently being built in the Rosyth dockyard by Babcock, are due to replace Type 23 frigates while offering the Royal Navy greater capability and more advanced vessels.

“We’re committed to building the new Type 31 frigates, which are being built in Rosyth,” Mr Pollard told The Courier, a newspaper based in Dundee. “There’s also opportunities for the submarine recycling work that is at a very nascent stage in Rosyth at the moment.”

He added: “There’s opportunities at Rosyth. I’m not expecting there to be any risk to those endeavors, what we have to do is make sure that when we have a sustainable shipbuilding program, we’re able to build ships at a reasonable cost with the right capabilities in the future.”

HMS Active, the second out of the five Inspiration-class vessels, has seen its modular blocks be formed together. They are the key parts of the ship’s structure. All Type 31 vessels are due to be rolled out throughout the 2020s. The project hasn’t gone entirely smoothly in the past. A dispute between shipbuilder Babcock and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had to be resolved earlier this year, due to a mixture of potential delays and losses for the company.