True cost of not having Carriers

It just goes to show that after four centuries of having politician's mess around with Naval procurement, they've got good at being bent.

Amplify’d from www.modoracle.com

True Costs Of Scaling Back Carriers

The Government is under fire for failing to grasp the full costs of scaling back Britain’s aircraft carrier programme a year after the defence review.

An influential group of MPs has heavily criticised decisions that have left the UK with no aircraft carrier until 2020 and the costs of adapting them to take a new fighter unknown for another year.

Under the Strategic Defence and Security Review last year it was announced that two planned aircraft carriers would still go ahead with one vessel being mothballed, and the other converted to operate a cheaper version of the new Joint Strike Fighter.

Today's Public Accounts Committee report warns that those changes mean that the cost implications are not yet fully understood, the cash savings from the revised plan will only be £600 million and there remained considerable uncertainty about the cost of modyfying one of the vessels.

It accuses the Ministry of Defence of focusing on "short-term" affordability in drawing up options for the SDSR to cover a £38 billion black hole in its budget.

The committee said the MOD had "concentrated on immediate cash savings and short-term affordability, and did not focus strongly on long-term value for money".

"The department believes that the SDSR decision will save £3.4 billion, but only £600 million of this is cash savings while the remainder is simply deferring expenditure beyond the department's 10-year planning horizon." Read more at www.modoracle.com

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