UPDATE
Can Britain afford not to build £5bn Royal Navy aircraft carriers?
Two aircraft carriers weighing in at 65,000 tonnes each may not be the obvious stuff of romance, but HMS Queen Elizabeth and her partner HMS Prince of Wales have become the will-they-won't-they couple of the defence world.
HMS Invincible, one of the Royal Navy's aircraft carriers Photo: Royal Navy
Every time the £35bn cost overrun at the Ministry of Defence is mentioned, the question of whether to scrap or build the £5bn carriers follows. Can the country afford two such vessels? Even if they are both built, there is a persistent rumour the second could be sold to India. Or that one ship will have to share the other's complement of fighter planes and helicopters, an ignominious fate for an aircraft carrier. Expectations of a happy ending for the pair are not strong.
But what is not often mentioned is that the carriers are already being built. The first cut of steel happened at BAE Systems' yard on the Clyde in July and work started last week on the first section to be built in Portsmouth. Some 80,000 tonnes of steel have already been ordered from Corus. Pulling the plug on the programme will not be straightforward.
There is also the small matter of the 10,000 jobs around the UK that depend on the carrier programme, a figure which is likely to rise to closer to 15,000 at the peak of the building programme. But even this is not a solid tick in the programme's favour with work being done in Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle and the backyard of the Prime Minister's constituency in Fife, there are also accusations this is a job creation scheme for key Labour seats.
The carriers, due to go into service in 2016 and 2018, are a totem for both sides in the debate over defence cuts. Those who would see the programme scrapped say a country with a £178bn hole in its finances, fighting a bloody war in landlocked Afghanistan, should not be spending further billions on equipment that has little relevance to the way wars are fought now.
In the opposite corner, the carriers' champions say the ships symbolise where Britain sees its place in the world, at the heart of international relations rather than sitting on the sidelines. Each ship gives the country four acres of sovereign territory at sea. They give the Armed Forces a place from which to exert air superiority without relying on any other nation to let them park their planes. They could also be used in large humanitarian operations.
Carrier supporters do not, however, have an answer for whether or not we can afford to maintain our present military capability and position as a key ally of the United States.
A strategic defence review (SDR) scheduled for after the general election is designed to answer these questions, and until that is done, the carriers' fate hangs in the balance. A recent defence green paper summed up the issues the SDR must address as "uncertainty and affordability". Depending on its findings, the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers could be the last ones Britain ever builds.
For now, the Government has committed to the two carriers. They were not mentioned in the defence green paper but Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, have both confirmed they will be built. The only programme the Conservatives have committed to saving if they win the election is the replacement for the Trident nuclear deterrent. Liam Fox, the shadow defence minister, will not give his full backing to the carriers until the defence review is carried out, but defended the need for a strong Navy.
"The last strategic defence review made a powerful case for naval aviation and maritime power projection and it is difficult to see what changes in the strategic environment have occurred that would change this particular element of our defence capabilities," he said. "We are a maritime nation dependent on the sea lanes for 92pc of our trade. A time when the threat of disruption on the high seas is increasing is no time for Britain to become sea blind. However, it would be wrong to restrict the scope of, or pre-empt, the review process itself."
The recent escalation of tension between Britain and Argentina in the Falklands is an example of the kind of future threats Britain should be prepared for, the party has said.
For now at least, BAE Systems and its partners Babcock and Thales, are going ahead with work on the first carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, hoping to ensure its too expensive to cancel when the time comes.
Cancellation would be "a significant challenge," according to Alan Johnston, managing director of BAE Systems Surface Ships.
"The carriers are part of the naval requirement of the future," he said, defending the need for Britain to have both ships and the progress made since the MoD delayed the programme by a year, sending up the cost from £3.9bn to £5bn.
"The ships that the Royal Navy has are in different states: the military expression is that you need to have one in a 'high state of readiness' and the other one undergoing various maintenance or upkeep. There could be a possibility that from time to time the Navy will need them both."
The prospect of building only one carrier does not make economic sense, Mr Johnston said.
"We've already committed funds to the second ship the engineering and design costs incurred in development are already baked in. We've started a procurement process that covers both ships. So the savings would not be half the full value, nowhere near it."
Because of its size, the carrier is being built in parts around the UK and the separate sections will be floated to Rosyth in Fife on barges for final assembly. Babcock is modifying Rosyth to accommodate the ships, widening the entrance and installing rails for a new glide crane that can lift 1,000 tonnes. As well as Glasgow and Portsmouth, parts are also being built in Appledore in Devon by Babcock, in Newcastle by A&P Tyne and by Cammell Laird in Birkenhead.
The carriers will also provide support and maintenance work in Portsmouth for at least another 30 years, possibly 50, depending on how long the ships are in service.
With a political storm raging around her, work on HMS Queen Elizabeth carries on regardless. The same debate may still be going on when work starts on the Prince of Wales in two years time, but the British companies building them and the Navy will hope that, by then, it will be too late to stop the pair sailing into the sunset.
