Two aircraft carriers to be built for the Royal Navy will have to be equipped with existing Harrier GR9 aircraft because their replacement, new-generation Joint Strike Fighters, will not be ready in time, the Ministry of Defence confirmed yesterday.

The first of the carriers is due to be in service in 2014. But David Gould, the MoD chief operating officer for equipment and support, told the Commons Defence Committee that the 36 Joint Strike Fighters (JSF) would come into service at a later date.

“The idea that we will have a carrier’s worth of fully productionised, trained and equipped JSFs in 2014 is not going to happen,” he said.

The MoD intends to buy 150 JSFs for the Royal Navy and the RAF, but the American and British defence companies developing the fighter have experienced severe technical challenges.

The GR9 is the latest version of the Harrier jump-jet which is in service in Afghanistan. It also operates off the Royal Navy’s existing carriers.

General Sir Kevin O’Donoghue, the Chief of Defence Materiel, told the committee that the MoD was facing severe financial restraints and predicted cutbacks and delays in other equipment projects. The MoD was granted a 1.5 per cent budget rise in real terms by the Treasury in last year’s Comprehensive Spending Review. But equipment costs have been increasing by at least 8 per cent.

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