In a statement in May 2019, former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Houghton poured salt on the wound. He insisted that the Ministry of Defence would "rue the day" the ships were bought, stating the money would have been better spent on maintaining the surface fleet and providing more manpower.

Then, in 2020, the National Audit Office voiced its concerns over missing elements such as aircraft and support ships, in light of the fact that the Ministry of Defence expected the ships will have "initial operating capacity" by December of that year.

It wasn't until 2024 that both ships made it to sea, embarking on a publicity tour to Germany and Liverpool. More recently, the UK's defence secretary John Healey told Parliament that cuts to the Navy's budget would potentially require mothballing one of the two carriers.

From Olympic stadiums to abandoned airports: billion-dollar wastes of money