UK carrier contract delayed

The decision on the Royal Navy?s aircraft carrier contracts for Barrow shipyard has been delayed until next year. Yard bosses are keeping a ?watching brief? on the timetable for the work after a government minister said the first of two new carriers will not be in service by the target date of 2012. The process of allocating the building contracts, known as the ?main gate? for the programme, is not now expected to happen until next year. The two ships and their aircraft are expected to cost £12billion, replacing three smaller carriers, the HMS Illustrious, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Invincible.

The whole issue has been complicated by the involvement of France in the project. France could end up building part of the Royal Navy’s two super-carriers, and ordering a third for itself, to allow the £3.6bn project to be completed within budget, according to senior Whitehall sources. It would be the first such co-operative defence venture of its kind between the two countries.

The French government is considering ordering the British aircraft carrier in return for a share of the work on all three of the 60,000-tonne warships. The move is also aimed at helping save thousands of shipbuilding jobs on the Clyde and at Rosyth, and at Southampton and Barrow-in-Furness in England. Industry and union officials fear workers could be laid off and expertise lost if construction were delayed by continued bickering between the Ministry of Defence and contractors over costs.

The two planned carriers, ?HMS Queen Elizabeth? and ?HMS Prince of Wales?, were originally scheduled to enter service in 2012 and 2015 respectively. That timetable has already slipped by at least a year, leading to the threat of lay-offs at UK yards while they wait for the construction phase, hailed two years ago as ?a new golden age on the Clyde?, to begin.

A report on the details of a three-carrier deal, compiled jointly by the UK shipbuilding consortium and the French state-owned naval systems group, DCN, was submitted to both governments at the end of last month. Defence sources say the French are interested in the possibility of acquiring a state-of-the-art warship as a back-up for their recently built nuclear-powered carrier, the ?Charles de Gaulle?, which has been plagued with problems.

A deal hinges on the share of the construction work for French yards in return for the savings that can be made from economies of scale by ordering three instead of two ships. The prospect has been made more attractive by the fact that Thales UK, a European de-fence company with strong French connections, designed the carriers and remains part of the consortium charged with building them. The other partners are BAE’s Scotstoun and Barrow yards in Glasgow and Cumbria, and the VT Group in Southampton. The design calls for the 900ft carriers to be built in sections and assembled at Babcock-Rosyth’s yard in Fife.

The UK-French talks, understood to be taking place at industrial, military and political levels, are working on the principle of French yards constructing the same sections for all three ships while UK companies build the rest of the vessels. The component parts of the French carrier would also be married up at Rosyth. However, UK defence industry sources claim that the joint venture could also lead to further delays in the ordering process if the French insisted on last-minute technical changes. The MoD confirmed negotiations had taken place, but said no decisions had yet been taken.