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The true cost of aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth
The Queen smashed a bottle of single malt whisky against the nation’s new aircraft carrier as she officially named it HMS Queen Elizabeth. It was a key moment in the project to build two new carriers that has attracted criticism over its £6.2bn cost and its level of ambition.
Even on a windy summer’s day in Rosyth dockyard in Fife, HMS Queen Elizabeth is unmistakeable.
The 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier – the UK’s biggest ever warship – looms over the shipyard where it was assembled and fitted out, dwarfing its predecessor HMS Illustrious, berthed alongside her for comparison.
The new carrier and its sister ship are a £6.2bn project first conceived in the 1998 defence review at a third of the cost.
The estimate by the time the contract was signed in 2007 was just over £3bn.
Along the way, there have been U-turns and doubters galore. But at the naming ceremony, five years after the first metal was cut, the focus will be not on the cost but what the ship means for the UK, and the nation’s place in the world.
Source: http://philosophers-stone.co.uk/wordpress/2014/07/the-true-cost-of-aircraft-carrier-hms-queen-elizabeth/
