Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent progress his Department has made on procuring Type 31e frigates; and if he will make a statement.

The Ministry of Defence took the decision to stop the procurement of the Type 31e Frigate because we had not received sufficient compliant bids for the Competitive Design Phase. The market was formally notified on 20 July 2018.

We communicated our plans for the first stage of the new procurement on 13 August 2018 by issuing a Prior Information Notice (PIN). This PIN invited potential suppliers to a short period of early market engagement to allow us to share with industry key elements of the new procurement, including technical and commercial information. The outcome of this market engagement will inform the next steps of the new procurement process.

There has been no change in our plan to procure a first batch of five new Type 31e Frigates for £1.25 billion.