Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make it his Department’s policy to increase total hull numbers in the submarine service.

As set out in the Defence Investment Plan (DIP), the Ministry of Defence intends to procure up to 12 SSN AUKUS submarines.

The programme is currently midway through the Detailed Design and Long Lead (D2L2) phase and we anticipate that the number of submarines will be confirmed before the end of this phase in 2028

Through the DIP, the Government has made the investments necessary to establish the industrial capacity required to ultimately deliver a submarine every 18 months from the mid-2030s to ensure we can deliver an expanded SSN force.