On 7 July 2026, the UK and the Netherlands announced plans for the combined procurement of new amphibious transport ships for their respective marine forces. Under the GBP 2.4 billion deal, eight ships will be constructed – four for each country. These are to be built in UK shipyards and based on an unspecified 15,000 tonne, 160 m long Dutch design.

Plans for new ships were revealed within a wider maritime partnership announced by the two governments following a sideline meeting between the two prime ministers at NATO’s Ankara Summit. This partnership is designed to further support the already-integrated UK-Netherlands amphibious force.

According to the UK government’s statement, the ships will transport vehicles, personnel, and materiel – the latter including maritime uncrewed systems (MUS). “Their flight decks will be designed to operate current and future long-range drones and autonomous systems, supporting the Royal Navy’s transition to a ‘hybrid’ navy,” it said.

The statement noted that operating a common platform will enable continuing integration between the two marine forces. Building on their well-established partnership, the new agreement and its new ships will increase opportunities for combined training and operations, plus development of MUS capabilities together, with a view to enhancing operational outputs.

Regarding MUS capabilities, the statement added that the two countries will seek to accelerate bilateral industry and military cooperation here, to help stay ahead of emerging threats.

For the Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN), its ‘Future Vision: Maritime Uncrewed’ document – demonstrating the RNLN’s maritime uncrewed task force – underlined the core role MUS will play in amphibious operations, as the RNLN looks to launch a distributed mix of crewed, uncrewed, and autonomous platforms from its future amphibious shipping.

Overall, the new UK/Netherlands arrangement aims to enhance how the countries collaborate in deterring threats in the North Atlantic and High North.

The ships element perhaps represents the rebuilding of a previous plan, from the 2023-24 period, when the two countries initially considered options for collaborating on amphibious shipping. Ultimately, while the Netherlands got underway with planning its amphibious transport ship concept, the UK chose to develop a Multi-Role Strike Ship (MRSS) concept, to recapitalise its own amphibious shipping with six new vessels. The intention was for the two separate concepts to have similar capabilities and outputs.

The continuing importance of ‘amphibiosity’ for the UK, including in generating collective capability with NATO allies, was reiterated in the UK’s latest Strategic Defence Review (SDR), published in June 2025.

However, in June 2026, the UK’s latest Defence Investment Plan (DIP) – which provides the budgetary and programmatic detail for the SDR’s strategic vision – announced that the UK’s major investments scheduled for the 2030-35 period would include developing new amphibious ships, prospectively in collaboration with the Netherlands. “The MRSS programme was too complex, and did not reflect the UK Commando Force [structure] we are now pursuing,” the DIP said. “Therefore, we are pivoting to explore opportunities for the UK with the Netherlands-led Amphibious Transport Ship Programme.”

With the NATO Summit announcement, this prospective collaboration has become a cooperative programme.

Making the announcement at the summit underlined the importance of the NATO element in this future collaborative platform and the capabilities it will bring. The UK’s statement, for example, noted that the enhanced co-operation between the two marine forces, including through the new platforms, would improve NATO’s crisis response capability.

Where the UK and the Netherlands working together to develop a flexible amphibious ship adds another layer of crisis response capability is through the two countries’ central participation in the Northern European security-focused, 10-country Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) construct. The UK-led JEF is designed to provide military options to manage and shape crises at the non-NATO, sub-conflict level; deploying amphibious forces to risk regions is a key component of deterrence in this context.

The new UK/Netherlands partnership, for amphibious, MUS, and other capabilities, also reflects another UK-led construct, of which the Netherlands is centrally involved. The Northern Navies Initiative (NNI), launched in April 2026 by UK First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, is built around enhancing northern European navies’ conventional deterrent power across a maritime region that holds significant strategic importance for these countries and for NATO. A combined amphibious platform procurement closely reflects such a requirement.