Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, when it is planned that the Capability Decision Point will be reached for the Type 26 Frigate programme.

The Capability Decision Point defined the key user requirements to be delivered by the Type 26 Global Combat Ships (GCS), and the milestone was achieved during the programme's Assessment Phase (AP) in November 2011. This allowed the Ministry of Defence to plan for a class of thirteen ships, approve the ships' baseline design and to focus on more detailed costing and design work during the remaining period of the AP.

On 20 February 2015, the Government announced that this work was sufficiently mature to conclude the AP and the programme will move forward into its Demonstration Phase (DP) with effect from 1 April 2015.

Under the DP contract, worth £859 million, we will continue detailed design work, invest in shore-based testing facilities and purchase key initial equipment for three Type 26 GCS vessels. In parallel, we will continue to work to understand better the programme schedule, cost and risk.

On current planning, and subject to a main investment decision, this will allow the Manufacture Phase to commence in 2016.