What fleet the Royal Navy's current budget can support

On its current budget, how many ships and what types should the Royal Navy operate?

Roughly the present fleet is affordable, but repeated cuts at the end of production runs discard the cheapest hulls after development costs have already been paid.

The initial assessment is that the existing budget broadly supports the fleet Britain already has. The criticism concerns earlier procurement decisions: design and production costs were paid before later, cheaper ships were removed from Type 23 and Type 45 orders. The Type 23 illustration uses a tentative late-build estimate of about £40 million per ship, or £320 million for eight additional hulls in the 1990s. For six additional Type 45s, the discussion compares an estimate of £300 million each with a higher assumption of £500 million each. On those assumptions, extending the six-ship programme would spread its existing development expenditure over twelve ships. These estimates explain the difference between the cost of an additional ship and the average cost of the whole programme. A larger fleet is also described as offering more flexibility for refits and repairs.