Cost of the UK’s new royal yacht increases by £100m in one week
The cost of the UK’s new royal yacht appears to have increased by £100m in the past week alone before any contract has even been awarded.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) last week said the total budget of the new ship – branded officially as a “national flagship” – was £150m in a formal invitation to tender.
However, defence secretary Ben Wallace said in a speech yesterday that the vessel will cost “between £200m and £250m on a firm price”.
The new ship was announced by Boris Johnson in May as a replacement to the Royal Yacht Britannia, which was decommissioned by Tony Blair in 1997.
The government says it will promote British business around the world and will be showcased in countries where the UK is holding trade negotiations.
A Whitehall official told the Financial Times that the £150m figure quoted by the MOD was a “target figure for industry”, while Wallace’s £250m figure was “to ensure no overspend”.
In his speech yesterday, Wallace said: “I am calling on you, our nation’s finest shipbuilders, to come forward — or perhaps I should say ‘muster’ — and to help us design and build a new national flagship.
“Our new national flagship will be the ‘jewel in the crown’ of our upcoming national shipbuilding strategy.
“I want this ship to be at the vanguard of the 21st century shipping technology.”
The ship was said to have caused a rift between Johnson and Rishi Sunak, after the Prime Minister did not tell the Treasury before committing to spending hundreds of millions of pounds on the ship.
The spending has been criticised by Labour as unnecessary, with shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds calling it a “vanity yacht”.
Former Tory chancellor Ken Clarke called it “populist nonsense”.