Engineering news
Britain's aircraft carrier programme faces further spiralling costs and the project remains a "high risk", MPs have warned.
Significant technical problems have not been resolved and there is potential for "uncontrolled growth" in the final bill, according to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
MPs warn they are "still not convinced" that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has a grip on the project and suggested it has "little control" over the costs of acquiring the aircraft
They heap criticism on the MoD for providing "deeply flawed information" that led to plans to switch the type of aircraft to be flown from the carriers. The move was later abandoned at a cost to taxpayers of £74 million, the National Audit Office revealed earlier this year.
In a report, MPs said they are "still not convinced" that the MoD has got the Carrier Strike programme under control and also raised concerns that the early warning radar system that protects the carriers will not be available until two years after the first one is delivered.
They accused the MoD of a "a history of making poor decisions, based on inadequate information" and also warned the department it must be more consistent in assessing what capability it needs.
Around 400 employees are working on the programme, but MPs said they were concerned that "staff are wasting their time with bureaucracy and duplicated effort" in their checks on contractors.
Last May, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond decided to revert to plans by the former Labour government to acquire the jump jet version of the US-built F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
Under proposals set out in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), the coalition had intended to switch to the more capable F-35C carrier variant of the aircraft - even though it meant mothballing one of the two carriers on grounds of affordability - but the costs of fitting the necessary catapults and arrester gear, ''cats and traps'', had more than doubled to £2 billion.
Margaret Hodge, who chairs the PAC, said: "This U-turn, which will cost the taxpayer at least £74 million, is the latest in an ongoing saga that has seen billions of pounds of taxpayers' money down the drain.
"When this programme got the green light in 2007, we were supposed to get two aircraft carriers, available from 2016 and 2018, at a cost to the taxpayer of £3.65 billion.
"We are now on course to spend £5.5 billion and have no aircraft carrier capability for nearly a decade.
"The MoD rushed into a decision in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review to change the type of aircraft to be flown from the carriers, claiming it would save money and improve capability. Just 18 months later they were forced to admit they had got it wrong and revert to the original choice of aircraft.
"At the time of the SDSR, the department believed the cost of converting the carriers for the new aircraft would be between £500 million and £800 million. By May 2012 it had realised that the true cost would be as a high as £2 billion.
"We are also concerned that, according to current plans, the early warning radar system essential for protecting the carrier will not be available for operation until 2022, two years after the first carrier and aircraft are delivered and initially operated. And the MoD does not yet have the funding to replace the shipping needed to support the new carrier."
Hammond said: "We are currently negotiating with industry to seek to secure proper alignment between industry and the MOD over the balance of the project and so bring the costs under control, but we are doing so within the context of a contract that gives us very little negotiating leverage.”
He added that the MoD acted swiftly to switch back to the short take off vertical landing aircraft after it became clear the alternative would be more costly. Although this cost £74 million it saved £1.2 billion in the long run.
Shadow armed forces minister Kevan Jones said: "The chaos of the government's carrier U-turn gets worse and worse.
"David Cameron has cost the taxpayer millions of pounds and has left the country without aircraft on an aircraft carrier for a decade. When defence budgets are tight, this looks incompetent and wasteful.
Britain's F-35B fighter completed its maiden flight in April 2012 and it is due to begin its first trials flying on to and off the deck of HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2018.