Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make an estimate of the (a) number of days and (b) proportion of expected lifespans that naval vessels spend in maintenance.

All Royal Navy ships rotate through planned operating cycles involving maintenance, upgrades, repair, training and deployment. This results in individual ships being at various levels of readiness at any one time in accordance with the Long-Term Operational Programme (LTOP) and operational needs.