Second Queen Elizabeth-Class Aircraft Carrier Will Enter Into Service -Cameron

The first Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, was floated in July. Photo courtesy Royal Navy

NEWPORT, Wales, Sept 5 (Reuters) – British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Friday that an aircraft carrier currently being built – the second of two new such warships – would be brought into service, ending speculation about its future.

“This will ensure that we will always have one carrier available, 100 percent of the time,” Cameron said in a speech at a NATO summit in Wales.

The fate of the carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, was not due to be decided until a defence spending review in the second half of next year after a general election, and defence experts had said it could be mothballed or sold.

RELATED: Britain’s Biggest and Most Powerful Aircraft Carrier Floated – Photos and Video

In Scotland two months ago, Queen Elizabeth officially named the first carrier after her, the biggest warship Britain has ever built, as part of a 6.2 billion pound ($10.12 billion) project to build a new generation of aircraft carriers.

Analysts say the bill for the pair built by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance – a consortium including British engineering companies BAE Systems and Babcock, and the UK division of France’s Thales – is good value in comparison to the U.S., which spent an estimated $12.9 billion on its own new carrier.

Britain has cut defence spending by around 8 percent over the last four years as part of government efforts to reduce a huge budget deficit, (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan and Michael Holden; editing by Stephen Addison)

© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.

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