THE Coalition Government should not allow the Ministry of Defence the option of letting two new aircraft carriers go further over budget or fall further behind schedule ("Clarity demanded over plans for jets", The Herald, March 7).
Instead it should be using this project to teach the profligates at the MoD and within the UK defence industry a long overdue lesson in project cost control, and finally dispel the notion that rampant cost and timescale overruns will be tolerated on major defence projects.
With the best part of a decade to go before they enter service, both the aircraft carriers and the F-35 aircraft that will fly from their decks are already two to three times over budget and eight to 10 years behind schedule (relative to the MoD's original 1999/2000 baseline budget costs and schedule).
These cost overruns are sucking the lifeblood from our defence budget in a way that is leaving our nation badly exposed on more mundane aspects of our defence. Nowhere is this more apparent than in home waters, where repeated sacrifices made to fund the aircraft carrier programme have left the Royal Navy with insufficient frigates and patrol ships to properly protect our North Sea oil platforms and keep our coastline secure, and the RAF without the Maritime Patrol Aircraft needed to respond to maritime disasters.
The Westminster Government should force the MoD to cut its cloth on the carrier programme, to suit the existing budget and required in-service date. If this means cancelling our involvement in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme, scaling back plans so that the two ships are completed as simple helicopter/Harrier carriers, and cancelling plans to sell our Harrier aircraft to America on the cheap, then so be it. The truth is that, due to its own vested interests (and those of the UK defence industry), the MoD has over-specified these ships so they are far bigger and far more complex than they needed to be.
In the new era of austerity, completing them as modest helicopter carriers, with the capability to embark 12 or so Harriers (or the successor F-35B if it ever comes to fruition) is sufficient for the UK's bona fide defence needs.
Dr Mark Campbell-Roddis,
1 Pont Crescent,
Dunblane.
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