…and now there’s a rethink on jets for our carriers
DAVID Cameron has agreed to an embarrassing U-turn on the future of the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers.
The Prime Minister has decided to reverse a decision on the type of jets due to fly from the two warships.
In doing so he has returned to a plan by Labour that he once derided as an ‘error’.
Senior Downing Street sources say Mr Cameron has decided to follow military advice and abandon plans to buy the conventional F-35C Joint Strike Fighter after costs soared by £1.8billion.
Instead, the Government will revert to the F-35B version which takes off and lands like a harrier jump jet. This proposal had been controversially axed by the Coalition in 2010.
The U-turn will be especially embarrassing because the jump jet was Labour’s choice – one that Mr Cameron overturned.
A senior security source said the U-turn will be signed off by the National Security Council in the next two to three weeks. ‘All the evidence points in one direction,’ the source said. ‘It will have to be formally looked at by the NSC.’ Mr Cameron had resisted calls by Defence Secretary Philip hammond to abandon the F35C.
But a source close to the Prime Minister said he had now been persuaded: ‘If David has to make what are very difficult political decisions he wants to make sure that they’re the right ones.’
No 10 officials said the rising cost of the aircraft and the fact that the conventional version is so delayed had forced a change of heart.
Pressing on with the plan could have delayed the £6.2billion HMS Queen elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales by another seven years – until 2027. This was considered ‘untenable, militarily and politically’, said a source.
The cost of fitting the 65,000-ton carriers with catapults and arrester wires so the F-35C could be safely launched and land had trebled from around £600million. The programme would also have provided only one operable carrier because of these costs.
Top brass are understood to be ready to present Mr Cameron with the ‘overwhelming’ case to switch aircraft even though the jump jet cannot fly as far and carries fewer bombs.
he is not expected to make a formal announcement until next month at the earliest.