The damaging effects of the Strategic Defence Review

The SDSR was more of an exercise in making savage

cuts to the defence budget than a serious attempt to assess

our future needs Photo: REUTERS

06 Jul 2011 by Telegraph View

The National Audit Office is rightly scathing about the Government's decision to save two aircraft carriers while cutting other key defence capabilities.

The scathing report issued yesterday by the National Audit Office about the decision, taken at the end of last year's Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), to order two new aircraft carriers while cutting other key defence capabilities, makes for depressing reading. It also confirms our long-held view that the SDSR was more of an exercise in making savage cuts to the defence budget than a serious attempt to assess our future needs.

At the heart of this flawed process lies the decision to press ahead with the purchase of two Queen Elizabeth-class carriers, at an estimated cost of £5.2 billion. That price is now set to rise by a further £1 billion after Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, insisted that at least one of the carriers be fitted with catapults and arrester gear to take the more capable version of the Joint Strike Fighter that will fly from its decks.

The decision over the carriers was taken at a time when the MoD was already struggling to plug an estimated £35 billion hole in its budget, and in the face of strong opposition from the military (with the exception of the Royal Navy). It was also accompanied by the bizarre step of scrapping HMS Ark Royal and its fleet of Harrier jets – which means Britain will have to cope without an aircraft carrier until the Queen Elizabeth-class vessels are ready in a decade's time.

If maintaining our carrier capability was deemed to be so important for the future, why did the MoD feel it could take a "holiday" from having one available until 2020? To judge by France's successful deployment of its Charles de Gaulle carrier throughout the current Libya conflict, it would have been useful if British commanders had been in a position to deploy one too. It is just another example of the muddled thinking that has rendered the entire SDSR process a farce.