Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what estimate his Department has made of the crew allocation for the proposed Royal Yacht.

Details of the first phase of the competition to design the National Flagship were set out in a Contract Notice published on 19 July 2021. Further details will be made available to industrial partners that express an interest in bidding for phase 1 of the National Flagship design competition. Premature disclosure of this information, or of that pertaining to later stages of the procurement, would be prejudicial to the commercial interests of the Ministry of Defence and its industrial partners and I am therefore withholding it at this time.

The crew allocation of the ship will be dependent upon the selected design.