Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what his Department has spent on the aircraft carrier programme in each of the last four financial years; and what the projected spend is on that programme in each of the next four financial years.

The total spent on the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carrier programme in each of the last four financial years, as published in the National Audit Office’s Major Project Report covering each of the relevant years, is as follows:

I am withholding the breakdown of the projected spend on the programme for each of the next four financial years as its disclosure would prejudice commercial interests. The overall cost of the ship programme, as announced by the then Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), on 6 November 2013, (Official Report, column 251-254), is £6.212 billion.