In June, the defence minister Luke Pollard twice told Parliament that the cost of regenerating HMS Bulwark for sale "will be announced in due course". On 14 September, answering Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty, he said the regeneration costs and the agreed sale figure were "commercially sensitive", although the sale was "expected to provide a net financial return". On 20 October Pollard explained that the return meant "the agreed sale proceeds less the costs of regenerating HMS Bulwark for transfer to the Brazilian Navy". Neither number has been published.
The Ministry of Defence announced on 28 August that Bulwark would be sold to the Brazilian Navy, without giving a price. Wes Streeting has been Defence Secretary since 20 July 2026.
The ship being sold had already absorbed a large refit. In February 2024, the Conservative defence minister James Cartlidge told MPs that neither Bulwark nor its sister ship HMS Albion would be "scrapped or mothballed" before their planned out of service dates in 2033 and 2034, and that Bulwark "will be regenerated" so it could be ready if required. Bulwark had not been to sea since 2017.
On 20 November 2024, the then Defence Secretary John Healey announced that both ships would be retired, among six capabilities he said were backed by the service chiefs. He told the Commons the ships had been "effectively retired by previous Ministers but superficially kept on the books, at a cost of £9 million a year". The six decisions together were forecast to save £150 million over two years and up to £500 million over five, a projection across all six, not a figure for the two ships.
Ministers have described the refit money in shifting terms. In December 2024, defence minister Maria Eagle gave £72.1 million as the estimated cost of a 2022 to 2025 refit and said that, because Bulwark was retired before the refit was completed, "the refit costs are under review". In March 2025 she said £72.1 million "had been spent" on refitting Bulwark from 2022 to 2024, and that when retirement was announced "a considerable amount of refit work was still outstanding" before the ship could return to sea. In December 2025 Pollard gave the same £72.1 million as total "refit and repair" costs over five years.
The answers do not say how much of that was spent under the Conservative government and how much after Labour took office in July 2024. In April 2025 Eagle told Cartlidge she would write to him with spending since 5 July 2024 and place a copy in the Commons Library.
Retiring the ships also cost the department on paper. Its 2024/25 accounts record a £428.459 million constructive loss, which Pollard said reflected the remaining value of both ships "and their associated capital works, spares and consumables". On 19 October he put Bulwark's share at about £233.2 million and Albion's at £195.3 million, stressing that this is a write down, not a payment from the defence budget. Because the write down includes capital works, it cannot simply be added to the refit spending. Pollard has also said that comparing it with the proceeds of a single sale "would be misleading".
The department has linked the sale to a new amphibious programme. Its announcement set Bulwark's transfer alongside a £2.4 billion partnership agreed with the Netherlands in July 2026 to build a new fleet of amphibious transport ships, four for each navy, with flight decks designed for drones and autonomous systems.
What the department has disclosed is a formula, not a figure. It says Brazil will pay more than it costs to make Bulwark ready to sail. It has not said how much more, how much the regeneration under way at Devonport costs, or how that compares with the £72.1 million spent preparing the same ship for a Royal Navy return that never came.