Government set for U-turn on aircraft carrier - Local - Portsmouth News
THE government is set to perform another U-turn in the Royal Navy’s £6bn aircraft carrier programme.
The News understands the coalition’s plan to mothball one of the 65,000-tonne warships is to be scrapped.
Instead, both HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will enter operational service in Portsmouth later this decade – as was originally planned by the former Labour government.
It follows the coalition’s recent backtracking on the type of fighter jets it will buy for the nation’s flagships.
‘Planning assumptions are that both carriers will now enter service,’ a defence source told The News.
The move, to be confirmed in the next defence review in 2015, is being welcomed by the navy as it will offer the UK a continuous, year-round carrier capability.
It could also secure hundreds of jobs at BAE Systems in Portsmouth due to double the repair and maintenance work.
The plan to mothball one of the carriers was announced by David Cameron in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) which opted to fit catapults and arrestor gear – cats and traps – to the flight deck of Prince of Wales.
This was in order to fly the longer-ranged F-35C version of the US-built Joint Strike Fighter from the ship.
But after cost estimates to install the gear rose to £2bn, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond reverted to the plan to buy the F-35B jump-jet variant of the aircraft, which don’t require cats and traps to take off and land.
Not really official until the next SDSR in 2015, but fingers crossed.