I thought it worthwhile reading the minutes.
https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/1350/pdf/
MoD PUS Sir Steven Lovegrove opening statement included the following:
The strategy is pretty clear. We know that there are significant pressures in the programme—the money certainly goes to help that—but there is a very clear direction on modernisation and the announcement made by the Prime Minister made it clear that he expects us to accelerate on that. We are clearly driven by three things, the first of which is an appreciation that the threat is getting greater weekly. We have recently seen much more activity by Russian warships in British waters, potentially hostile attempts to get into our supply chain and the continuation of violent extremism. We know what the threat is, and we are very much driven by a desire to meet it with modern technology and in more places more often across the world. We have a sense of wishing to be more actively deployed, thinking more about our posture than our contingent structure. We are driven by the desire of the Prime Minister and the Government for the UK to reassert itself on the world stage. We are mainly Euro-Atlantic, but clearly we will do more in the Asian Pacific. We are very much driven by an appreciation of the need to double down and invest in new technology, particularly where Britain is at the forefront. That is the strategy that is driving this. It will become fuller and betterarticulated in the integrated review, when the agencies, the Home Office and the Foreign Office will have their moments, but it is all part of a fairly clear picture.
Chair (Tobias Ellwood MP): The simple answer is yes; you don’t need to be a sea dog to know that it is 24 per carrier. But you are right in what you imply. The force effects at readiness is a rather military way of saying, “I need some to train on, I need some that will probably be in repair and I’m going to need some for long-term maintenance.” It still means that you have 24 to do that. The multiple on force effects at readiness is one to four: for every one that is combat ready, with a pilot, ready to go, you need another three spare for all these other activities, so you can guarantee the one. That means 24 divided by four, taking you down to six. You’re going to have six working aircraft ready to rock and roll on any deck at any time, if you stick to 48. Do you agree with that?
Sir Stephen Lovegrove: It rather depends on whether you have both carriers out at the same time, and we don’t anticipate they will be.
Air Marshal Knighton: Mr Ellwood, your arithmetic is spot on, but, as the permanent secretary says, the policy around the use of the carrier is that we will only deploy one carrier at a time. It will be available 100% of the time, and we will be able to deploy up to 24 jets on that carrier.
May be I am just thick but I can't see how the RN can support a robust strategy in both 'Euro-Atlantic' and 'Asian Pacific' with out an an assurance that they have the ability to deploy two carriers with a full air compliment. Or is it just they assume any Asia Pacific operations will always be under USN air cover?
The DCDS (Military Capability) cheered me up slightly.
Air Marshal Knighton: The Prime Minister made clear in his statement the importance of shipbuilding and his commitment to increasing the size of the Navy, particularly the Navy’s surface fleet. Type 32 is the name given to the follow-on capability from Type 31. The broad intent is that that will follow on in the same vein as Type 31, as a general-purpose frigate. It will have open architecture, which will enable it to fulfil a range of roles. We anticipate that construction will start towards the end of this decade, and we will use the time between now and then to refine the requirement and the potential design, and to understand the commercial model. We will be in a better place to answer your specific questions about how much it will cost and precisely what it will look like in due course. I’m afraid I cannot give you more specific guidance than that, other to confirm again the commitment that the Prime Minister has made both to shipbuilding and to increasing the Navy surface fleet.
My emphasis