https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-giant-warships-sinking-britains-budget/

If chancellor Rachel Reeves is serious about public finances, she must stop the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers causing a black hole in the military budget.

The navy’s aircraft carriers in Portsmouth. (Photo: Jonathan Brady / Alamy)

As Labour presents the public with large tax rises and cuts in services, Britain’s armed forces are wasting billions of pounds of public money on projects with no practical use in present or potential future conflicts. 

It would be nothing short of a scandal if they are given more taxpayers’ money to spend.

Prime candidates for the chop, and an immediate target for the government’s promised Office for the Value of Money, should be the two aircraft carriers: HMS Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales – the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy.

Independent analysts are starting to question the future of the carriers, something that was unthinkable not so long ago. There is speculation that at least one could be mothballed.

Shortly after he retired as chief of the defence staff, General (now Lord) David Richards described the ships as “unaffordable vulnerable metal cans”. They were “behemoths”, he told me.

…

https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-giant-warships-sinking-britains-budget/