Carry On Shipping (money): The UK in aircraft carrier farce

11/30/2011 Andrew Elwell - defenceiq.com

The National Audit Office (NAO) has released a revision of its ‘Ministry of Defence: Carrier Strike’ report that it produced in July indicating that the government was right to continue production on two new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy.

Released yesterday, the ‘Carrier Strike: Complementary Report’ document concludes “that the strategic policy decision to re-focus investment in both the carriers and the linked combat aircraft was well informed.”

The Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) judged that it would cost more money to cancel the production on one carrier than it would to complete the order with a few technical and capability revisions.

The BBC reports that the government hopes to save £4.4 billion over a ten year period on the programme.

Sounds good, right? No problems here then.

Not exactly. Inevitably there is conjecture and counter-conjecture from both sides of the political floor. Most notably the revisions could mean that the UK is without a fully operational aircraft carrier until 2020.

While both the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will be built, only one will be operational (would you believe it’s the Prince of Wales that’s being cast out into the cold, forgotten for the time being as Queen Elizabeth rules the seas). HMS PoW will be held as a reserve and could be used for training purposes.

"Rather than two carriers, available from 2016 and 2018, at a cost of £3.65 billion, we will now spend more than £6 billion, get one operational carrier and have no aircraft carrier capability until 2020 - almost a decade," said Margret Hodge, the Public Accounts Committee Chairman.

The NAO, while conceding that the coalition was right to continue investing in both carriers, is uneasy about the handling of finances of the carrier programme since that decision was taken.

“We are deeply concerned, however, about the risks to the achievement of value for money on what were previously relatively mature projects with understood risks and funded mitigation plans,” the Carrier Strike report states. “The Strategic Defence and Security Review decision introduced significant levels of technical, cost and schedule uncertainty.”

"It is high time ministers took responsibility for their actions,” said Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy. “The rushed, Treasury-driven defence review left Britain without aircraft flying from an aircraft carrier for a decade."

The most significant technical change from the SDSR came in terms of the carrier’s compatibility with future aircraft. The SDSR committee decided to design the carriers around the U.S. Navy’s Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) as opposed to the originally planned short take-off, vertical-landing (STOVL) capability.

Air Training Commands will be monitoring the shift towards the U.S. JSF as it will have repercussions for military flight training over the next decade as the UK’s Air Force and Navy seek to adapt to new capabilities.