BAE Systems and VT Group will be part of a consortium building two new Royal Navy aircraft carriers, after the £4bn project was today given the go ahead by the Ministry of Defence.

The £4 billion manufacturing contract for the 65,000-tonne vessels will be signed in June, safeguarding around 10,000 jobs in British shipyards.

The contract has been awarded to a consortium that includes a shipbuilding joint venture between the UK's BAE Systems and VT Group. The two ships, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, will be the biggest and most powerful surface warships ever constructed in the UK.

They will enter service in 2014 and 2016 respectively, and are expected to sail for at least 50 years.

Des Brown, defence secretary, said: “This is an important day for the project and I am delighted that we are moving closer to signing the contract for the manufacture of the carriers”.

BAE Systems and VT group will now finalise plans for a joint venture called BVT. The two companies had made clear that the merged entity was reliant on receiving the manufacturing contract for the carriers. BAE’s shipyards at Govan and Scotstoun, in Scotland, and VT’s in Portsmouth, on the south coast, will help build the carriers.

Other members of the consortium include Britain’s Babcock International Group and France’s Thales, which designed the ships.

BAE will hold 55 per cent of the new group, with VT the rest. The joint venture needs to be formed before the contract can be placed.

Defence equipment minister Baroness Taylor added: "Today's confirmation that we are proceeding with the two aircraft carriers underlines our commitment to both the Royal Navy and to the UK shipbuilding industry.

"We are investing about £14 billion in the Navy and in the maritime industry over the next 10 to 15 years. The future carriers will provide an important military capability and will sustain many jobs - around 10,000 at the peak of production."

The government decision had been long delayed, leading to fears that the MoD could not afford the carriers because of the department’s estimated £2bn budget shortfall.

However, last week, Gordon Brown agreed to let defence officials free up hundreds of millions of pounds by breaking one if its accounting rules. The MoD will now be able to move some budgetary funds between the three years of the Comprehensive Spending Review and use cash allocated for annual capital spending for resource spending.

In return, the MoD will be forced to look closely at cutting other defence projects, with some ministry officials fearing that other defence contracts will now inevitably have to be scrapped.

BAE shares were down 0.71 per cent at 455. pence in mid afternoon trading, while VT was down 0.89 per cent at 665.5p. Babcock was 2.78 per cent lower at 595.5p.

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