Lack of investment in Royal Navy aircraft carriers is branded 'foolhardy'
FAILING to invest enough in aircraft and support vessels to defend the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers has been branded ‘foolhardy’ by union bosses.
Unite, which has thousands of members employed in the UK’s defence industry, has blasted Whitehall following a damning report by a Commons spending watchdog into the £6.4bn Queen Elizabeth-class warships.
MPs sitting on the public accounts committee said indecision and penny pinching had created a ‘debilitating lack of clarity’ about how the two £6.4bn warships would be used.
Union chiefs have insisted the failure to fund several key support capabilities – like support vessels, the Crowsnest radar system and the F-35B stealth jet – would ‘restrict’ how the navy can use the carriers ‘for many years’.
Rhys McCarthy, Unite national officer for aerospace and shipbuilding, said: ‘The cross-party report by MPs paints a bleak picture of how the Ministry of Defence has conducted its procurement policy over many years to the detriment of UK defence industry jobs.
‘It is a wake-up call for defence secretary Ben Wallace.
‘Spending the money on the aircraft carriers and then not putting in the proper protection, such as the radar system and the delay with no guarantee that fleet solid support ships are to be designed, built and maintained in the UK, is foolhardy.
‘British technology, skills and jobs are at risk because of flawed ministerial policy and the UK government should use the upcoming defence spending review to bring forward shovel ready projects that not only defend the nation, but also the wider economy.
‘Boris Johnson’s so-called Build Back Better agenda also needs to include a more coherent understanding of the importance of the UK’s defence industry, especially in relation to regional policy.
‘We need a procurement policy that fully acknowledges the role that these world-class UK companies and their tens of thousands of employees can play in a post-pandemic global economy.’