The final cost of Britain’s two new aircraft carriers will not be known until next year, raising doubts about whether the critical capability lost in last year’s defence review can be restored.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said that the multibillion-pound project would leave Britain with only one fully functioning carrier that would operate for between 150 and 200 days a year, with a vastly reduced fleet of jets.
In a damning report, the Government’s spending watchdog said that it was unable fully to assess the decisions that went into a major shake-up of the aircraft carrier programme as part of the defence review because the Government had refused to hand over a number of Cabinet committee papers.
A spokesman for the watchdog said that he could not recall a previous occasion when the NAO had been prevented from accessing all the desired material.
From the information made available, the NAO called into question the Government’s decision to continue with the controversial carrier programme after the defence review, revealing that military commanders said that they preferred scrapping the project and focusing their limited resources on maintaining other ships.
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It also warned that the planned size and shape of Britain’s future Armed Forces was unaffordable unless the Government increased the MoD budget from 2015 — a concern voiced last month by the three Service chiefs.
Michael Whitehouse, the watchdog’s chief operating officer, said that axing Britain’s aircraft carriers and retiring the Harrier jump-jet fleet, coupled with changes in the design of the new vessels and the fast jets to fly off them, had generated savings of £3.4 billion over the next decade. However, the move introduced “significant levels of operational, technical, cost and schedule uncertainty”, he added.
“It will take two years [from when the review was published last October] for the MoD to reach a mature understanding of the consequences of the decision. These consequences include a decade without an operational carrier and the risks after such a time associated with reconstituting the capability.
“The risks to the delivery of the new carriers are compounded by more generic problems with defence acquisition — notably the MoD’s continuing difficulties in balancing its budget.”
Liam Fox highlighted the £3.4 billion in savings achieved in the programme and said that the new carrier would have greater capabilities. “Operating the more cost-effective carrier variant fast jet will also over the longer-term offset the conversion costs,” the Defence Secretary added.
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However, Margaret Hodge, the chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, expressed concern at the NAO’s findings. “There are new cost and value-for-money risks which have yet to be quantified and which in the current financial climate are clearly unaffordable,” she said.
The programme to build one operational and one non-operational aircraft carrier stands at £6.2 billion, almost double the 2007 estimate for two fully functioning carriers.
Meanwhile, the deadline expired yesterday for bids to buy the Royal Navy’s former flagship HMS Ark Royal, which was axed in the defence review. The sale, organised by the Defence Equipment & Support agency, was originally due to finish last month but was extended because of the extent of interest.
A winning bid, which could result in the carrier being turned into scrap metal, will be announced within a couple of months.