Babcock’s Rosyth dockyard (www.babcockinternational.com) has been awarded a £5 million contract to carry out the first planned dry-dock maintenance of Britain’s largest warship, HMS Queen Elizabeth.

This will allow the 65,000-tonne carrier to undergo a routine hull survey and maintenance of her underwater systems over a six-week period in the summer.

Defence Minister Stuart Andrew said: “After a phenomenal year of trials off the East Coast of the USA, this dry-docking contract is an important step for HMS Queen Elizabeth, as she gears up for operations.

“The largest ship in our Royal Navy’s history, she was assembled in Rosyth and will now return for this multi-million-pound routine maintenance work, as she gets set to represent Britain across the world for decades to come.”

HMS Queen Elizabeth will resume aviation trials later this year with British-owned F-35 aircraft. She is expected to enter operational service in 2020, before her first deployment in 2021.

Her sister ship, HMS Prince of Wales, is currently in the final stages of construction at the Rosyth yard and is due to be handed over to the Royal Navy later this year.