Second London Naval Treaty
The design of the "Lion"-class battleships was influenced by the terms of several arms control treaties of the 1920s and 1930s. The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 had banned new battleship construction, with certain specified exceptions, for a decade. The London Naval Treaty of 1930 extended the ban for five more years, which meant that almost all the First World War-era ships would be eligible for replacement by the Washington Treaty's rules when the London Treaty expired. The British government intended for the 1935 Second London Naval Disarmament Conference to prevent a naval arms race that Britain could ill afford, but the Japanese refusal to sign the resulting Second London Naval Treaty of 1936 thwarted that hope.