Industry already understands (well elements of it does) with classing, as well as certification to treaties and agreements, the ability to class new ships being a desirable requirement. Gap analyses are done at design and during the build to determine what is needed to bring ships into class, what waivers will be required etc.
As the CoA is the Flag Authority they do not need to do this but have been attempting to do so. Some elements are sensible to comply, others it is stupid to try, i.e. rescue boats under SOLAS need to be orange/red, not a good look for a warship when a RHIB can do the job. MARPOL double hulling requirements are nice to have but to be honest pretty irrelevant for a warship with multiple small (by ship standards) tanks, distributed around the hull.
There is a view held by some that if you class a ship then maintenance automatically becomes cheaper and can be outsourced pretty much anywhere, this is not the case and can, as seen with the Armidales can lead to considerable issues. The problem is not that the design was classed but rather t was used as an excuse not to invest in the necessary engineering support a warship (with design faults) needed, to be able to operate at increased tempo, outside of their originally intended role.
This is the core of the problem, classing is great if you are going to be using ships for a set purpose, consistently, through their operational lives. The very nature of naval use means the ships often need to operate at higher tempos or outside of assumed areas of operation.
Alex this isn't for you because I know you know far more on this than I, this is to illustrate that when some get enamoured with an idea, particularly politicians, they often assume too much and this usually results in poor execution, cut corners, operational difficulties and even loss of life. I have worked in situations where non shipbuilders have attempted to class warships because they see it as a way of making ship maintenance and operation more like that of aircraft, i.e. it can be done by any certified maintainer. They completely missed the fact that The very nature of military operations means you need an extremely robust engineering capability to support warships through life, whether they are classed or not, that cannot effectively be outsourced to a classification society, they are the minimum necessary, warships need more than that minimum.
