Warships: Iron and Steel
(asked on 13th March 2025) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the (a) proportion and (b) value was of steel from the (i) US and (ii) EU used in UK military shipbuilding in each of the last five years.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) contributes to the Department for Business and Trade’s (DBT) steel public procurement return. The information is published annually and can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/steel-public-procurement
The data available from the information published includes steel purchased for MOD shipbuilding projects. The response to this question assumes that UK military shipbuilding relates solely to the building of surface warships, and does not include submarine construction.
The tables below set out a summary of the details available, for each of the last five years. Data for Financial Year (FY) 2023-24 has not yet been published. The data gathered and subsequently published by DBT has matured and become more detailed since the start of publishing steel data for FY 2017-18 in January 2019. Therefore, the origin of the steel is only available for FY 2022-23.
Financial Year 2022-23
Project | Steel product type | EU / UK / US | Countries of origin | Value of steel £ |
Type 31 | Flat rolled, Plate, Sections & shapes | EU | Finland, Spain | £41,850,500 |
| Sections & shapes, Tubes/Pipes/Hollow sections | UK | UK | £1,311,790 |
| ||||
Type 26 | Plate, Sections & shapes | EU | Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain | £3,162,171 |
| Plate, Sections & shapes | UK | UK | £1,537,996 |
Financial Year 2021-22
Project | Steel product type | Countries of origin | Value of steel £ |
Type 31 | Plate, Bulb bar, Sections | Not detailed | £43,600,000 |
Type 26 | Plate | Not detailed | £465,498 |
Financial Year 2020-21
Project | Steel product type | Countries of origin | Value of steel £ |
Type 31 | Structural steel, Sections | Not detailed | £391,949 |
Type 26 | Plate, Sections, Sheet, Non-ship | Not detailed | £3,758,269 |
Financial Year 2019-20
Project | Steel product type | Countries of origin | Value of steel £ |
Type 26 | Various grades | Not detailed | £3,401,994 |
Financial Year 2018-19
No steel was recorded as having been purchased in FY 2018-19 for any UK shipbuilding projects.