Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether the decision to decommission HMS Ocean in 2018 was finalised before the refit of that warship in 2014.

HMS OCEAN entered service in 1998 with a specified service life, based on her build specification, of 20 years. Work on HMS OCEAN's refit began in December 2012 and was completed in August 2014. The timing of the refit was driven by the mandatory requirement to revalidate the ship's safety and environmental certification. The decommissioning date of 2018 is the same as that planned at the time of this refit.