Scrapping pre-dreadnoughts does not finance new battleships

How many pre-dreadnoughts would Britain need to retire to afford a larger dreadnought and battlecruiser fleet?

Retirement would not fund the program; decommissioned ships could remain in ordinary, and depressed postwar scrap prices yielded far too little money to build replacements.

Decommissioning a ship removes it from active service without necessarily selling or breaking it up. The Admiralty could keep useful older hulls in ordinary reserve while government appropriations paid for new construction. Scrap sales offered little relief because the postwar market was glutted with ships and steel. Dreadnought's roughly £40,000 disposal value was insignificant beside the cost of a new capital ship.